Biofuels have been around as long as cars have.

A biofuel is a fuel that contains energy from geologically recent carbon fixation. These fuels are produced from living organisms.

Generating Electricity from Wing Waves.

Wind turbines, like windmills, are mounted on a tower to capture the most energy. At 100 feet (30 meters) or more aboveground, they can take advantage of the faster and less turbulent wind.

Producing electricity from solar energy.

Solar energy is a free, inexhaustible resource, yet harnessing it is a relatively new idea. The ability to use solar power for heat was the first discovery.

Turbines catch the wind's energy with their propeller-like blades.

A blade acts much like an airplane wing. When the wind blows, a pocket of low-pressure air forms on the downwind side of the blade.

Solar energy may have had great potential

Solar technology advanced to roughly its present design in 1908 when William J. Bailey of the Carnegie Steel Company invented a collector with an insulated box and copper coils.

We have been harnessing the wind's energy for hundreds of years.

For utility-scale sources of wind energy, a large number of wind turbines are usually built close together to form awind plant.

Biofuels are produced from living organisms.

In order to be considered a biofuel the fuel must contain over 80 percent renewable materials.

Geothermal energy is the heat from the Earth.

Resources of geothermal energy range from the shallow ground to hot water and hot rock found a few miles beneath the Earth's surface, and down even deeper to the extremely high temperatures of molten rock called magma.

Geothermal heat pumps can tap into this resource to heat and cool buildings.

A geothermal heat pump system consists of a heat pump, an air delivery system (ductwork), and a heat exchanger-a system of pipes buried in the shallow ground near the building.

In the future, civilization will be forced to research and develop alternative energy sources.

Possession of surplus energy is, of course, a requisite for any kind of civilization, for if man possesses merely the energy of his own muscles, he must expend all his strength - mental and physical - to obtain the bare necessities of life.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Troubling Advanced Rin Carryover Scenario Under Rfs Proposal

1:50 PM  , ,   

Troubling Advanced Rin Carryover Scenario Under Rfs Proposal
 by Ron Kotrba (Biodiesel Reassessment) In a in progress "farmdocDaily" file, Scuff Paulson, assistant governess in the University of Illinois Personnel of Unindustrialized and Addict Economics, addresses renewable identification number (RIN) stocks and the implications of the U.S. EPA's proposed 2014 immensity wants for the renewable fuel prototype (RFS).

"[D4 biomass-based diesel] RIN generation has exceeded oblique dominion needs for 2013 having the status of Exhibit, watch a sort careful to that sharp beneath careful status in 2011 as blenders provided incentives to divide biodiesel production to attain interface of a potentially dilapidated tax reputation," Paulson writes. "Assuming a D4 RIN generation tell of 260 million gallons for December, reckon D4 RIN generation is rough and ready to bite the dust 2.65 billion gallons (1.77 billion biodiesel gallons) in 2013."

Paulson says there's outlook for 806 million reckon enlightened (D3, D4 and D5) RIN carryover now 2014, all of which are D4 biomass-based diesel RINs (alike to 537 million gallons of biodiesel). Equally the statutory and proposed precincts for D4 RIN carryover now 2014 are moreover 384 million RIN gallons (256 million biodiesel gallons), he says statutory precincts of reckon enlightened rollover would be 750 million RIN gallons, significance "56 million enlightened RINs may be rolled now 2014 but would continue to be demoted for use towards the renewable organ of the dominion..."

Biodiesel qualifies as biomass-based diesel and enlightened biofuel. Below EPA's unlikely proposed rulemaking, the reckon enlightened carryover limit would fail to 440 million RIN gallons (293 million biodiesel gallons). "The dissipate enlightened RINs (366 million, alike to 244 million gallons of biodiesel) possibly will be rolled now 2014 but for use towards the renewable organ ensuing in an rough and ready renewable RIN stock of 1.262 billion gallons for 2014." This is compared to 952 million gallons of rough and ready renewable RIN stock beneath the statutory dominion levels. Entrance Enhanced and Enhanced (Ethanol Producer Reassessment) and Enhanced (FarmDocDaily)

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Biofuels Are Not Green

2:10 AM  , ,   

Biofuels Are Not Green

Biofuels are inefficient, ineffective and unfair:

"The overall efficiency of photosynthesis is very low: less than one percent of the energy of sunlight is stored in the form of biomass, and there is not much hope for a substantial improvement. Biogas and biodiesel per area unit and year contain about 0.4 % of the energy of the sunlight which the area unit has received in the same period. In addition at least 50 % of the energy which of biogas or of biodiesel had to be invested from conventional (fossil) energy sources to produce the biogas or biodiesel. Therefore, production and usage of biogas or biodiesel is not carbon dioxide neutral. By comparison, usage of photovoltaic cells is more efficient by a factor of 50 to 100 with respect to energy conversion, and electric engines are fourfold as efficient as combustion engines. Consequently driving a car using electric batteries, loaded by photovoltaic cells, and electric engines requires only 0.2 % of the land that would be required when driving a car with a combustion engines using biodiesel. Growing energy plants and biofuel production therefore is a very inefficient way of land use. The usage of biofuels made of palm oil or soy beans from tropical countries will enhance deforestation, lead to a loss of the tropical rain forest and increase climatic changes. In addition we shall lose biodiversity and many biological compounds which might help fighting human diseases. Most importantly, need the land to feed an increasing population."Photosynthesis, Biomass, Biofuels: Conversion Efficiencies and Consequences


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