OT: Oh hellz yeah! Aviation going green? You Bet!!!!

[pixelbox]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bus ... 99665.html

That's my home town airline!!! I'm so proud!

[Meef Chaloin]

That's cool......but biofuel also has a lot of serious problems as well

edit: just got the end of the article, sounds very very good

[pixelbox]

Yeah, but it IS a step in the right direction, at least.

[Emissary]

That's cool......but biofuel also has a lot of serious problems as well

edit: just got the end of the article, sounds very very good

one problem being that we will save the planet but all starve in the process. So save the planet twice then.

[mkelly]

one problem being that we will save the planet but all starve in the process. So save the planet twice then.

Article says: "Both are sustainable, second-generation sources that don’t have an effect on food crops or water resources, according to Continental."

I can't see how they have no effect, but that's how they'll justify it.

[beats me]

There was an article in our local paper awhile back that a relatively small high end electric sports car manufacturer was planning to expand and build a new plant here which would provide 1,000 new jobs. This got me all excited and thought that is the kind of forward thinking environmental company I would like to work for. I was even thinking about getting the ball and interest rolling now even though the new plant wasn't scheduled to open for a year.

Then the economy took a super dump and their plans are on hold.

[Hidden Driveways]

Did anyone see the BBC special about Global Dimming? It's pretty depressing and scary, as we've come to expect in this day & age. You can You Tube it.

Pollution from factories and condensation trails from jets are keeping the suns rays from the surface of the Earth. In layman's terms: we fucked.

[Homebelly]

There is nothing "Green" about this.
It is an "Alternative" fuel.

The problem with this is that even though this technology solves a whole bunch of problems associated with fossil fuel based technologies, it creates a whole bunch of newer problems including the fact that the source of the fuel will be competing with the same ground and farming systems that produce our food.

[Mesmer]

it creates a whole bunch of newer problems including the fact that the source of the fuel will be competing with the same ground and farming systems that produce our food.

This is a common misconception.

The fact is it does not compete for the same patches of agricultural / farm / food land.

What it does create is opportunities for the developing nations to enter into a new market, which not only generates new sources of social mobility (jobs) but also greater national energy independence. This is good news to almost all, except OPEC and business friends.

Nations that can produce sugar cane, can produce biodiesel; same with soy, corn and others. Many non agricultural nations can jump in the biodiesel band wagon and become exporters, instead of importers ... this will almost certainly stimulate national/local food production using more land.

I had your concerns, then I learned the new model: the quoted sentence is not correct. Let's cheer for al businesses that get it right.
:]

-h

[mkelly]

This is a common misconception.

The fact is it does not compete for the same patches of agricultural / farm / food land.

Well, I'm no scientist. But the way I see it is this - the Earth's power source is the sun. By and large we get pretty much the same amount of energy from it year in year out. These secondary bio-fuels may not use the same land or water as the food stuffs we consume, but both crops have the same energy source. If we increase the amount of solar energy we are using to grow these secondary bio-fuels, there is less energy available somewhere else in the ecosystem. Something else will suffer - what I don't know.

You can't get away from the fact that at the minute our energy is mainly stored energy (from the sun) that accumulated over millions of years. I can't see how there's enough solar energy to totally replace the stored energy we're currently consuming.

The only solution is to to consume less.

My personal contribution is to fly less. Eat less. Turn off more devices. Look for more energy efficient ones. We're still all fucked though

[Homebelly]

it creates a whole bunch of newer problems including the fact that the source of the fuel will be competing with the same ground and farming systems that produce our food.

This is a common misconception.

The fact is it does not compete for the same patches of agricultural / farm / food land.

What it does create is opportunities for the developing nations to enter into a new market, which not only generates new sources of social mobility (jobs) but also greater national energy independence. This is good news to almost all, except OPEC and business friends.

Nations that can produce sugar cane, can produce biodiesel; same with soy, corn and others. Many non agricultural nations can jump in the biodiesel band wagon and become exporters, instead of importers ... this will almost certainly stimulate national/local food production using more land.

I had your concerns, then I learned the new model: the quoted sentence is not correct. Let's cheer for al businesses that get it right.
:]

-h

The last time i looked into this it became my opinion that there was a lot of spin put on the pro arguments that ignored the down sides of the impact that this type of farming would have on the ecosystems of these regions.
It might well be true that the vegetable crops used for bio fuel are not food cops, and also that these crops are able to grow on land that is not suited to growing food crops. It is also true that these changes will open up the doors to economies benefiting from this kind of industry.
However, it doesn't address the fact that most of these Crops are GE based and that these GE crops are patented and their use is controlled by very aggressive corporations. These Bio-fuel crops are also altered to be able to adapt to poor quality soil types, that's great for 10 or 20 generations of crops, but then the soil becomes depleted of the required nutrients and so these need to be replaced, usually with GE based fertilizers.
These farming systems also need to be Huge in order to be officiant.
Even then they are not as efficient as what they are augmenting, but that's a whole different topic. The more relevant aspect here is that these farming systems are often corporate owned and controlled, so the hosting country gains very few benefits from having them present, in fact they inherit a lot of social problems attached to the displacement of many of the farming communities that these massive farms replace.

There are plenty of examples of how this new model system is not working, two examples being India and Brazil, others can be found on a smaller scale in Africa, Mexico and even, to a much lesser extent, Australia.

The airlines motivation for this change is not based on any altruistic concern for the environment. It is based on economics. And here is the next problem because the economics of a bio-fuel based alternative is masked by the fact that it is supported by already established fossil fuel technology and industry.

All of this adds to my opinion that this is not a step in the right direction, in fact i would say it is only a step to the side, and so even though it might seem to be solving some immediate problems, it isn't addressing or even acknowledging the long term problems.

[Homebelly]

My personal contribution is to fly less. Eat less. Turn off more devices. Look for more energy efficient ones. We're still all fucked though

I don't want to sound like i'm raining on your parade, and i agree, this is a great philosophy. But not for the reasons you are implying.

[pixelbox]

The airlines motivation for this change is not based on any altruistic concern for the environment. It is based on economics. And here is the next problem because the economics of a bio-fuel based alternative is masked by the fact that it is supported by already established fossil fuel technology and industry.

Why even say this? Of course a BUSINESS is more concerned with ECONOMICS than saving the planet, but the key idea here is that there are at least motivators for businesses to developing alternative fuel sources which in turn, conserve the environment.

No idea anyone has developed thus far is perfect, and many of the "environmentally friendly" ideas are too expensive to be efficient. I'm just glad we are taking steps to provide solutions instead of blindly wasting resources that we cannot get back like we have in the past. The one good thing here is, at least bio-fuel is able to be REPLENISHED.

We aren't going to solve all of these environmental issues by just snapping our fingers. This is a good step in the right direction, that's all I'm saying.

[Homebelly]

Why even say this? Of course a BUSINESS is more concerned with ECONOMICS than saving the planet, but the key idea here is that there are at least motivators for businesses to developing alternative fuel sources which in turn, conserve the environment.

If we accept bio-fuels as an alternative, then we are not making progress, we are taking a step to the side. Most of the bio-fuel alternatives do not solve the issue of being CO2 neutral.

No idea anyone has developed thus far is perfect, and many of the "environmentally friendly" ideas are too expensive to be efficient. I'm just glad we are taking steps to provide solutions instead of blindly wasting resources that we cannot get back like we have in the past. The one good thing here is, at least bio-fuel is able to be REPLENISHED.

There have been no reliable resources that we can get back with out cost, at least not from an energy use point of view. There is always going to be a pay off. Part of the reason oil is considered efficient is because the pay off has always been relatively small compared to the benefits.
It has recently become an issue because of three factors.
We seem to be running out of it and so its cost is not stable.
Those that use it the most do not have direct control over its production.
It has been linked to environmental change.

The fact that bio fuel can be replenished is true, but it doesn't solve the second or third problem, in fact it would contribute to the third problem and exasperate the second problem. One of the big advantages of oil is that it is found underground or out in the ocean and so has little effect on population displacement. Crop based bio-fuels, on the other hand, require huge tracts of land. Even if this land is not suitable for growing conventional food crops then that is usually an indication that it isn't suitable for growing any kind of crop and so environmental changes need to take place on some level. The simplistic argument here is, "if we are going to make those changes to the environment to produce a combustible fuel alternative, why not use that same technology to develop better, safer and more efficient food production technology?"

We aren't going to solve all of these environmental issues by just snapping our fingers. This is a good step in the right direction, that's all I'm saying.

Your absolutely right, these changes are not going to take place with out some massive shift in the way we think. The use of a combustible fuel inside some derivative of an internal combustion engine is not an indication of that shift, it is only a step to the side that circumnavigates and ignores the real issue.

[mkelly]

My personal contribution is to fly less. Eat less. Turn off more devices. Look for more energy efficient ones. We're still all fucked though

I don't want to sound like i'm raining on your parade, and i agree, this is a great philosophy. But not for the reasons you are implying.

You disagree with my crackpot theory about limits to just how much energy we can tap from the sun? I haven't done the math - I wouldn't know where to start, but I'm open to debating it.

Otherwise I don't understand your response.