Shell To Stop Selling Fuel With Ethanol ??

[Guest Nerb]

I dont normally comment on old threads, but this one was just so depressing. To be honest, I hate reading unchallenged posts.

 

Ethanol can be made from pretty much all plant matter. Seaweed is a good one. No land use or water issues there! And ethanol is not just used for fuel, theres medicines, food, solvents and everything else. Old engines or cheap engines with cheap valves and some types of rubber hoses are the automotive issues. Im not informed on the reasons the aviation industry cant use it, but i'll assume its due to the same old technology, the same as cars. All arguments to keep relying on fossil fuels are flawed and are only spouted by those invested in the industry or old folk who dont give a shit about the future or those easily misled by advertising by the biggest spender. If we dont develop these technologies now we will be bent over a barrel by those with easy access to oil (assuming the above posts are correct and there is "heaps" of oil left). Mass production makes things cheap. Mass produced solar is cheap, mass produced ethanol will be cheap. And to those saying that the raw materials required to produce "green" products offsets their benefits... Poor form. The humble home solar panel takes only 1 year to off set its carbon emissions made during its manufacture out of its 25+ year life. And what about recycling? (i wont start)

 

If ethanol use was mandated, big business would make the effort to build/convert refineries because they know there will be a market. Humanity is lazy and it needs a lot of pushing to do anything worthwhile. Short term profit is the only thing we care about (and the only thing Shell probably cares about). We seem happy to drive the system into the ground. This is why we now have a carbon tax... because all those lazy pricks wont look at the future. This is why we have a government paid NBN being built.... because all those lazy pricks would not invest in one themselves.

 

Make ethanol in fuel compulsory, educate people on the real affects without spin, make people upgrade their engines where necessary, make it worthwhile for business to produce ethanol.

 

 

[bas]

Best to invest our resources in building alternatives NOW; once the stuff gets rare and hugely expensive, we won't be able to afford (or have the time) to do so anymore.

 

Bio-fuels will be great for those industries that can't switch over so easily. Aviation being the main one. Just about everything else we do (drive cars, light our houses, industrial processes) can be done with renewable or nuclear electricity; whether it is through charging batteries or separating hydrogen. Only ships and aircraft are a real problem, so lets save what we have for those and switch them to bio when we need to.

 

 

[skeptic36]

I dont normally comment on old threads, but this one was just so depressing. To be honest, I hate reading unchallenged posts.Ethanol can be made from pretty much all plant matter. Seaweed is a good one. No land use or water issues there! And ethanol is not just used for fuel, theres medicines, food, solvents and everything else. Old engines or cheap engines with cheap valves and some types of rubber hoses are the automotive issues. Im not informed on the reasons the aviation industry cant use it, but i'll assume its due to the same old technology, the same as cars. All arguments to keep relying on fossil fuels are flawed and are only spouted by those invested in the industry or old folk who dont give a **** about the future or those easily misled by advertising by the biggest spender. If we dont develop these technologies now we will be bent over a barrel by those with easy access to oil (assuming the above posts are correct and there is "heaps" of oil left). Mass production makes things cheap. Mass produced solar is cheap, mass produced ethanol will be cheap. And to those saying that the raw materials required to produce "green" products offsets their benefits... Poor form. The humble home solar panel takes only 1 year to off set its carbon emissions made during its manufacture out of its 25+ year life. And what about recycling? (i wont start)

If ethanol use was mandated, big business would make the effort to build/convert refineries because they know there will be a market. Humanity is lazy and it needs a lot of pushing to do anything worthwhile. Short term profit is the only thing we care about (and the only thing Shell probably cares about). We seem happy to drive the system into the ground. This is why we now have a carbon tax... because all those lazy pricks wont look at the future. This is why we have a government paid NBN being built.... because all those lazy pricks would not invest in one themselves.

 

Make ethanol in fuel compulsory, educate people on the real affects without spin, make people upgrade their engines where necessary, make it worthwhile for business to produce ethanol.

*How are you going to harvest enough seaweed to make any meaningful contribution?

 

*Yes there are a lot of people misled by the advertising of the biggest spender not unlike those being misled by some of the propaganda the Green movement pumps out. That's where the laziness of humanity comes in. We are too lazy to educate ourselves so we take what people tell us as being gospel.

 

*I think you will find the principals of mass production which make manufacturing so much more efficient, are not nearly as effective in agriculture. i.e it is extremely difficult to double production off a hectare of land and is usually only possible with application of a lot of fertilizer and water.

 

*If you have to mandate something it is usually because it is not an economical proposition. Perhaps they could subsidize the bejezuz out of it instead, like they do with wind farms and solar.

 

*I'm glad you didn't start about recycling because most of it takes more energy to recycle than it saves, makes us feel good though.

 

*We now have a carbon tax because it will raise revenue for the government, no other reason.

 

*The government (the taxpayer) has to pay for the NBN because there is no way the public would pay enough to use it for it to be viable for any business to invest in.

 

Just my 2 cents

 

Regards Bill

 

 

[willedoo]

It's good to see people discuss these issues in a mature fashion, putting forward logical arguments for & against. I'm yet to come across a one sided coin.

 

Personally, I like to hear both sides of the story as nothing is simple with these issues. Having spent most of my working life in the oil & gas industry doesn't necessarily mean I like the stuff. I'd love to see clean, green energy replace hydrocarbons one day & there is a lot of good arguments for their merit. The big problem is money and volume & economy of scale. At present we use 85-90 million barrels of oil a day (a barrel is around 160 litres) & that's not including gas. So the big challenge is, how do we replace that, given that humans are not prepared to forgo their modern lifestyle ( electricity & transport ). At the present time, it would be a mammoth task to replace one or two percent of oil useage with alternatives (just a guess). Every bit helps, but we really need some sort of new technology that we don't have now.

 

The big problem with oil is not lack of reserves, but the fact that we've got most of the easy stuff already. The future there means drilling in deeper ocean & more remote locations, where the economy of scale means higher cost. It's hard to know how it will be in 50 or 60 years. It would be good to be able to replace oil as a fuel, but that presents other problems. Oil will always be needed to manufacture tyres, plastic, fertilizer, road surfaces etc unless new technology is developed. At the moment plastics & oil based products are affordable because the overall demand for oil makes production of these offshoots viable. But that changes when you take fuel out of the equation. If Shell, BP etc have to produce smaller volumes just for the manufacture of the necessary by products, the cost of those would be enormous. Hopefully the industrial chemists will invent something new one day.

 

The other problem, the biggest one, is money, or what some refer to as the petrodollar. The theories of alternative energy are great, but these are only some of the hurdles to overcome. At the moment, it's real David & Goliath stuff. Hopefully the future will be better.

 

Cheers, Willie.

 

 

[Guest Nerb]

*How are you going to harvest enough seaweed to make any meaningful contribution?*Yes there are a lot of people misled by the advertising of the biggest spender not unlike those being misled by some of the propaganda the Green movement pumps out. That's where the laziness of humanity comes in. We are too lazy to educate ourselves so we take what people tell us as being gospel.

 

*I think you will find the principals of mass production which make manufacturing so much more efficient, are not nearly as effective in agriculture. i.e it is extremely difficult to double production off a hectare of land and is usually only possible with application of a lot of fertilizer and water.

 

*If you have to mandate something it is usually because it is not an economical proposition. Perhaps they could subsidize the bejezuz out of it instead, like they do with wind farms and solar.

 

*I'm glad you didn't start about recycling because most of it takes more energy to recycle than it saves, makes us feel good though.

 

*We now have a carbon tax because it will raise revenue for the government, no other reason.

 

*The government (the taxpayer) has to pay for the NBN because there is no way the public would pay enough to use it for it to be viable for any business to invest in.

 

Just my 2 cents

 

Regards Bill

Firstly I will say that arguing about what cannot be done yesterday cannot be done tomorrow is silly. With that:

*How to harvest enough seaweed? I only suggest that seaweed can be a contributor. However, 4.5m acres of algae to supply all of Americas transport fuel needs sounds pretty promising.

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetically-engineered-stomach-microbe-turns-seaweed-into-ethanol

 

http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/algaes-biofuel-bloom/395

 

Thats the first two hits i got. Just google biofuel yourself.

 

*Im sure there is some propaganda, but who is to profit from this propaganda? Where do you get your info that is pro-fossil fuel?

 

*Mass production in agriculture? Read the article linked above for algae production, but we can also grow meat in factories (there are hundreds of articles on this). I also believe yields in general have increased significantly over the centuries... Hydroponics?

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128283.500-meat-without-slaughter-6-months-to-biosausages.html

 

*Mandating to help progress? I agree it may not be economical today, and that was my point. Mandating is to fast track because we dont want our kids to pay the price of leaving things to the last minute.

 

*Bulldust. It takes 3 to 4 times more energy to mine ore and turn it into steel than to recycle steel. 25-70% reduction in energy to recycle paper. Plastic is about 90% energy saving.

 

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:JNGOgpIIzRoJ:www.bssa.org.uk/cms/File/The%2520Energy%2520Benefit%2520of%2520Stainless%2520Steel%2520Recycling.pdf+energy+to+recycle+steel&hl=en&gl=au&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESggm2JNk1rBE1awBtOJTbHF6RKzLuDU9Rhz8mlLhDy_PI9jNobatIgt5OpNTrCQvEfqmyFGK-snNpQVFfaIdgTU2igLAHnn1gDW_CmWabc27yAbWU18XICcOUL3qzKiUrL_abnb&sig=AHIEtbS17Z2sH3rr0eY9ueiODmx4LOAiYg

 

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/paper_recycling.html

 

http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/energy-recycle-glass-bottles-vs-aluminum-cans-vs-plastic-2376.html

 

*Your name at work? A carbon tax will hinder heavy polluters and help green technologies. If it makes some $ for the government, then thats the polluters fault.

 

*from the prices ive seen, the nbn plans are no more expensive than the current adsl plans. The nbn payback period is said to be around 15 years. I guess you still use dial up?

 

http://www.whistleout.com.au/Broadband/National-Broadband-Network-NBN-Plans

 

Not just my 2c, but a whole lot of other peoples also.

 

 

[bas]

The thing I find most annoying about the Carbon Tax coverage in the news is that they spend page after page after page telling us how our electricity bills are going to go up 10% and how paying more won't cut emissions. How about a few column inches on telling people how to save 10% on their electricity use, Rupert? You know how easy it is to save 10% in the average home? Same bills as last year AND lower emissions! But telling people they actually have to put some effort into something won't sell newspapers...

 

from the prices ive seen, the nbn plans are no more expensive than the current adsl plans.

Exactly. You must compare NBN plans to naked ADSL as there is no further line rental. Internode 300GB naked ADSL2+ is $90. (average speed on ADSL2+ is 12 mb) Their 300GB, 25 mb NBN plan in $75.

 

 

[Guest DWB]

I don't wish to get involved in this debate particularly as everyone has preconceived ideas on both sides with the truth somewhere in the middle. You can get an expert to write a story on anything any way you want & they do/will for whoever is paying for it. The mining industry is a classic. I even had an expert write one for me just to get a subdivision done. So simple but I PAID for it. It told the local government authority what it wanted to hear.

 

25-70% reduction in energy to recycle paper.

I know I've been out of the printing business for 12 years now but I can tell you recycled paper was at least 100% more expensive to buy than your good old Reflex, so something must have cost a lot more if they were saving on energy!

 

 

[Guest Nerb]

I don't wish to get involved in this debate particularly as everyone has preconceived ideas on both sides with the truth somewhere in the middle. You can get an expert to write a story on anything any way you want & they do/will for whoever is paying for it. The mining industry is a classic. I even had an expert write one for me just to get a subdivision done. So simple but I PAID for it. It told the local government authority what it wanted to hear.

True. And it is usually in a mining companies or oil companies interest to pay for the publishing of stories that suit them. It is in everyone elses interest to get the whole truth. Making statements that are hearsay on a forum is an error in my view. If you have some sort of evidence or something i'll listen. I'll happily accept that im wrong if i am.

 

I know I've been out of the printing business for 12 years now but I can tell you recycled paper was at least 100% more expensive to buy than your good old Reflex, so something must have cost a lot more if they were saving on energy!

People will happily pay if they think its a good thing, regardless of the cost. I'd also guess 12 years ago labour costs to sort recycled paper from garbage were higher and supply may have been lower. But these are the systems that are improving all the time. I couldnt say without researching that recycled paper is cheaper than virgin paper even now, but i can guarantee that it uses less energy. In anycase, no one would argue that we should not recycle paper? In fact i saw that there is a method of pulp production that DOES use more energy that making virgin paper. Its a method that was used in the 1960's. Selecting that isolated method could be used in the "against recycling" arguement. But why would someone use it unless 1; you own a business that uses this method or 2; you want to win your arguement for arguements sake.

We should all be asking "why is Ethanol a bad thing (including who is saying this)? What are the negatives and how can we overcome any problems it has?" rather than saying "my local mechanic told me never to use Ethanol blended fuel. I beleive him"

 

 

[bas]

And if you can't find an expert, you hire a Paid Extra!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-mQsWm0KUA

 

SA doesn't allow blending of ethanol, so the only way to sell it here is to truck it in pre-blended. (blending is normally done at the depot, not the refinery) Hence, we have very little of it.

 

I have no problem with it; a few hundred million European users of the stuff can't all be wrong....

 

Rotax also has no problem with 10% ethanol in their engines. The only issue is that the 912 ULS needs 95 minimum, so BP's "91 + 'up to 10%' ethanol" is not going to guarantee it is going to be 95, so don't use that. I put Shell or BP 98 in my aircraft, never had an issue. I would also be happy to use a 95 fuel that has ethanol in it. If Rotax says it's fine (no ifs, buts or maybe like they do with AVGAS!) then who am I to disagree?

 

 

[Powerin]

True. And it is usually in a mining companies or oil companies interest to pay for the publishing of stories that suit them. It is in everyone elses interest to get the whole truth.

This line is often trotted out to try and discredit any information that opposes pro climate change science. I don't buy it because it pre-supposes that money is always the driver and therefore the motivation behind ALL pro climate change science is as pure as the driven snow. A lot of the green philosophies are based on deeply held beliefs and ideologies that are often pursued with religious fervour. Never underestimate the power of ideology...from both sides.

 

We should all be asking "why is Ethanol a bad thing (including who is saying this)? What are the negatives and how can we overcome any problems it has?" rather than saying "my local mechanic told me never to use Ethanol blended fuel. I beleive him"

Ethanol (or vegetable oils) is just another form of solar power, but it is conveniently stored in liquid form. I don't have a problem with using food producing areas for ethanol, at the moment, because if there was a shortage I wouldn't be getting such low prices for my grain. The problem with ethanol is that it is no more sustainable than fossil fuels. To grow grain or cane as cheaply as we do we use fossil fuels in our tractors (which could conceivably be replaced by expensive vegetable oils) , the crops are fertilized with products that are manufactured from non-renewable resources....Phosphorus fertilizer comes from mined phosphate rock and Nitrogen fertilizer is mostly made using natural gas, chemical sprays come from petro-chemicals. Until we come up with environmentally AND economically sustainable ways of growing crops (and feeding the world if it can afford it), using ethanol just replaces one form of unsustainable energy with another.

 

 

[Ignition]

Make ethanol in fuel compulsory, educate people on the real affects without spin, make people upgrade their engines where necessary, make it worthwhile for business to produce ethanol.

I would hope that it never becomes compulsory, we should be able to access a variety and make our own choice on what we should use, not have it forced on us. Humans are capable of making decisions. Here's my interpretation of the facts:

 

Until we come up with environmentally AND economically sustainable ways of growing crops (and feeding the world if it can afford it), using ethanol just replaces one form of unsustainable energy with another.

Exactly right. Energy doesn't magically come from nowhere, it doesn't just appear or disappear, the energy we use needs to be converted or transformed from one source, to another. Physics has already proven this. The process to power an engine is the same (thermodynamics) - fuel goes in (potential chemical energy), burns (reaction and conversion process of fuel & oxygen), comes out converted or transformed to a different energy (heat & kinetic energy), it does the same thing and results in the same end result, Kinetic Energy for motion and by-products (different chemical compounds) as a result of a chemical reaction. When you take solar power into account, Solar Radiation is converted into Electrical energy, which can be further converted (such as the light globe, heat and light as the resulting energy transformation process). If the energy is a form other than thermal energy, it can be transformed with potentially perfect efficiency to another type of energy as thermal energy typically has its limits (second law of thermodynamics).

 

Ethanol combustion produces many of the by-products of gasoline combustion, and significantly larger amounts of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. It results in a significantly larger photochemical reactivity that creates much more ground level ozone in comparison to gasoline; Ethanol exhaust generates 2.14 times more ozone than gasoline exhaust. Thus Ethanol really isn't an efficient or necessarily better alternative to fossil fuels such as gasoline.

 

There are basically two options scientists should be looking at: Efficiency - get the most out of the fossil fuel process, rather than trying to stop something completely that we know works while we don't have any large scale renewable and economically viable alternatives, and develop Renewable - Primarily Solar & Hydro, so that it is able to be economically sustainable in a large scale and able to support the energy uses that we want to use it for, to gradually phase over to the renewable energy as a majority with the option to maintain smaller scale fossil fuel energy. By this, I mean, engines capturing the Carbon Dioxide and other chemical by-products, and using the energy of those compounds to get the required energy (Kinetic for engines) to prolong the conversion cycle; basically recycling as much as possible to get the most out of the entire process and research and development of renewable energy so that it can step up to the plate. The technology to Split Carbon Dioxide into Carbon Monoxide and use it as a liquid fuel has been around for a long time (1920's Germany).

 

I'll stand by my statement on the previous page, "Solar, hydro, wind, nuclear and geothermal all need large amounts of equipment produced through methods that generally aren't "green" or "clean" too; that equipment usually needs servicing and a fair amount of maintenance over time too, so it isn't as sustainable as it may seem..." - There is no truly 'green' option, and it will be an awfully long time before something can be developed to claim the title.

 

In regards to the Carbon Tax: As I have said plenty of times in the past (not on here as far as I am aware though); Climate Change/Global Warming in the political sense is a farce, nature controls us, not the other way around, the political sense and understanding of the environment appears to be quite ridiculous as they tend to focus on the smaller scale and not the larger scale, 50 years out of 14 billion years is not a significant amount of time to see any long term trends and we can't influence the global environment any more than the Tooth Fairy can influence the Easter Bunny to provide healthier Easter eggs. Everything happens in a cycle, we are currently at the warmest period of the current Glacial Cycle: over the next ~100,000 years, temperature variation will get colder, carbon dioxide will reduce by approx ~100 parts per million volume - The Carbon Tax in theory can not fail to 'reduce carbon' because science already shows us through Ice Core Samples in Antarctica, that this is exactly what is naturally going to happen over the next ~100,000 years, where the cycle will start again - The Carbon Tax has no effect. (See Diagram Below of Ice Core Data from Vostok, Antarctica - Present Time on the Left, Years are in thousands)

 

 

Unfortunately for the Carbon Tax (and Mining Super Profits Tax), it is clearly not focused on the environment, how else can the government possibly get a budget surplus from such a major debt, over such a small time period, conveniently in the months proceeding the Carbon Tax and also Mining Super Profits Tax both coming into effect. I am all for more efficient (or so called greener) technology, but not at the expense of living standards; Renewable Technology needs to be developed, but until it can do the things we need it for efficiently and effectively, sticking to our current sources is about as good as it can get for the near future.

 

 

[Guest Nerb]

Powerin, how does the volume of "non-renewable resources" used to grow crops compare to burning coal? Have you got a comparison or are you assuming it is just as bad?

 

Ignition, can you provide some sources for your data? I'd like to know :

 

The cost benefit to trying to get carbon burning technologies efficient compared to using large scale solar technologies which are well and truely here already.

 

How much maintenance your solar panels will need over their design life. How much maintenance between a solar thermal driven turbine and a gas burning turbine or steam driven turbine?

 

How much healthier easter eggs can be?

 

Please please please link where your graphs come from.

 

How adopting green technology will lower your living standards?

 

A debate which relies on "my mechanic said" or something you read in the hearld is bound for..... somewhere poor.

 

Edit: I couldnt think of the name of this before, but: Read up on Desertec if your worried about current technology for green energy. World power production, and Australia is perfectly located to be a producer for half of Asia.

 

Think positive people.

 

 

[willedoo]

This thread sure has produced some different opinions and interesting theories.

 

A news item in todays Australian newspaper mentioned a draft research report on carbon pricing which might be interesting reading when it's made public. Bearing in mind as was already discussed in this thread, there can sometimes be a bias depending on who did the report and who it was commissioned for. This applies to both pros and cons, both have been caught out trying to mislead the public at times, so there's no moral high ground to be won here here, only facts to be presented.

 

The article described the report as saying that the price could crash to $4/tonne by 2020 once the fixed $23/tonne period gives way in 2015 to a floating cap trading scheme. Another section of the research suggested that a price of $35/tonne would be needed to force a switch from coal to gas. The point was made that our scheme, under it's present links to the international market, which is forcast to remain low, will not end up with a high enough price to support renewable energy project development. I havent read the report, so I'm not saying yes or no to it, just making an observation here.

 

So maybe the situaion is that Australia can ride around on a white horse waving a big sword on carbon trading, but unless the rest of the world climbs on, the scheme may have a lot of trouble delivering the intended outcome.

 

There's always two elements of this debate. The first is the science, whether it works, whether it might work with more research and funding, and whether it's economically viable taking into account economy of scale and other factors. In the long term, this will always be a big issue, as one day the world will need an alternative, it might be in fifty years or a hundred, but the time will come.

 

The other element is the present day politics, which is the tricky bit. By politics, I mean the global energy/dollar politics which run the world, not the politics of individual nations tinkering with trading schemes. Oil and energy is the world's biggest economy and corporations have become used to making money and having the ear of any governments that matter. When it comes to energy, money=politics=money, they're inseparable. Alternative energy will only become mainstream when it's all worked out that the same people will have the same money and power as when they dealt with hydrocarbons. The worlds most powerful nation can't let it's currency crash at any cost, and as it is propped up by international oil trading, it must be able to safely transition to a scheme whereby, in a future world of alternative energy, that energy continues to be traded exclusively in US dollars.

 

Without going into how it all started, amost all of the worlds oil is traded in US dollars. Not many countries are self sufficient in oil, so most have to import it. To do that, they have to buy US treasury bonds and currency to pay for it, and the resulting global demand for the dollar keeps the value of it up. If we don't buy that currency, we can't buy the oil. It's worked for more than forty years; they didn't call Nixon 'Tricky Dickie' for nothing. And you don't give up a gig like that without a fight . So where this leaves the future of sustainable energy is anyones guess, but it can't be helping things.

 

 

[Ignition]

Ignition, can you provide some sources for your data? I'd like to know :

The cost benefit to trying to get carbon burning technologies efficient compared to using large scale solar technologies which are well and truely here already.

No sources needed, I wasn't saying we should use one over the other, I was saying we should develop both and use both where they are best suited. It's my opinion.

You could quite easily do your own research, but you won't find any accurate costs to develop either option, because, like cancer research, you won't know how much money you need until you reach your goal, hence it being research and development (unless you have a preconceived solution for both that you can guarantee will work first time, every time).

 

How much maintenance your solar panels will need over their design life. How much maintenance between a solar thermal driven turbine and a gas burning turbine or steam driven turbine?

I don't know what specific maintenance each type need, nor will I spend time researching, however as with everything man made, each will certainly need maintenance; that wasn't the point of my post, the point of my post was that Ethanol (as proven by physics) is not necessarily a better option to Gasoline and that the Carbon Tax won't do anything for the environment.

Again, if you really want to know for yourself, you could quite easily do the research.

 

How much healthier easter eggs can be?

Portion Control/Size/Amount, Ingredients (Fresh Fruits/Veges), less artificial ingredients... I'm sure you get the idea...

 

Please please please link where your graphs come from.

The Graphs are from wikipedia due to the ease of access as it is already uploaded to a ready source (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Vostok_Petit_data.svg/800px-Vostok_Petit_data.svg.png) The graph is of the data taken from Ice Core Samples in Vostok, Antarctica, as reported by Petit et al. (1999), and the raw data can be readily accessed from the US Governments NOAA Paleoclimatology World Data Website, part of the National Climatic Data Centre of USA. The raw data was from a joint Russian, French and American ice drilling project which recovered the deepest ice core. Here is a link to the raw data if you would like to draw up a graph for yourself (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_data.html)

 

How adopting green technology will lower your living standards?

This would vary person to person and be more affordable for those who have got a higher income or cash they can readily use on new technology such as solar generation. Money is unfortunately one of the most important parts of our modern lives and controls a very big part of living standards.

I will not comment further as I find it completely irrelevant to the discussion and I don't wish to discuss my personal financial position with you.

 

A debate which relies on "my mechanic said" or something you read in the hearld is bound for..... somewhere poor.

Exactly right. You seem to be quite one-sided about the whole thing, I am personally open to any technology advancements, as I stated "I am all for more efficient technology", but I don't believe there is any reasonable logic in saying things should be forced upon us, such as Ethanol, or by using clearly biased or uneducated responses. As I have previously stated, humans are capable of making decisions. No one should ever try restrict our choice to one single product. Remember, Crude Oil is just as natural as Sunlight and it is still energy transforming or converting into useful energy at the end of the day (Law of Conservation of Energy). I would much rather a range of choices and be allowed to make the choice I wish to make.

 

 

[Powerin]

Powerin, how does the volume of "non-renewable resources" used to grow crops compare to burning coal? Have you got a comparison or are you assuming it is just as bad?

I wasn't making any assumptions. I'm just saying the production of ethanol requires a reasonable input of energy and various chemical compounds, much of which comes from finite resources.

If you trust Wikipedia as a source (I do mostly) here is the article on the energy balance of ethanol.

 

 

[Guest Nerb]

I don't know what specific maintenance each type need, nor will I spend time researching, however as with everything man made, each will certainly need maintenance; that wasn't the point of my post, the point of my post was that Ethanol (as proven by physics) is not necessarily a better option to Gasoline and that the Carbon Tax won't do anything for the environment.

My point was that Solar panels are solid state devices. No maintenance required. They either work or dont. Maybe the Carbon Tax wont do anything, but it will drive new technologies, and thats what it is supposed to do. Unless it all falls over as Willedoo has highlighted that it might.

 

Portion Control/Size/Amount, Ingredients (Fresh Fruits/Veges), less artificial ingredients... I'm sure you get the idea...

Sorry, I just thought they couldnt get any healthier. I love them.

 

The Graphs are from wikipedia

Thank you, I shall read

 

This would vary person to person and be more affordable for those who have got a higher income or cash they can readily use on new technology such as solar generation. Money is unfortunately one of the most important parts of our modern lives and controls a very big part of living standards.

Cheap electricity cannot possibly lower anyones living standards! I did not intend to ask you about your personal situation. I meant the public in general. A low carbon economy is a cheap system to run. It will benefit everyone. It does not cost nothing to get it up and running, but it is a long term goal.

 

Exactly right. You seem to be quite one-sided about the whole thing, I am personally open to any technology advancements, as I stated "I am all for more efficient technology", but I don't believe there is any reasonable logic in saying things should be forced upon us, such as Ethanol, or by using clearly biased or uneducated responses. As I have previously stated, humans are capable of making decisions. No one should ever try restrict our choice to one single product. Remember, Crude Oil is just as natural as Sunlight and it is still energy transforming or converting into useful energy at the end of the day (Law of Conservation of Energy). I would much rather a range of choices and be allowed to make the choice I wish to make.

How can I be one-sided by asking for backed up claims? Did you read post #33? Whole truths is what im after. I'd like to know the answers. I'd also like it if others would like to know also. I have only asked for people to back up their statements as you have done in part.

"Forcing" the use of ethanol is not supposed to limit us to one product. it is about breaking the cycle of fossil fuels.

 

You keep mentioning the laws of energy conservation. I understand. I realise that the most effective way of producing electricity is to convert light directly into electricity. We have invented and are continually developing solar cells that can do this. I dont think that growing forests, letting them die and waiting 300 million years to dig it up, then burn it to boil water to turn it into steam to drive a turbine that will produce electricity is the best option. I have not said we should cease this activity immediately. I am not opposed to nuclear, or gas, or oil plants... i only believe we should be encouraging these fantastic "green" technologies that will make all of our lives better.

 

I don't believe there is any reasonable logic in saying things should be forced upon us

You may not like it, but there is plenty of logic.

 

Again, if you really want to know for yourself, you could quite easily do the research.

Please dont head down that road... i could do the research for everyone, but then I would be blamed for missing the "right" research. If you make a claim, back it up yourself.

Back on Ethanol, and after reading plenty in the last few days, I'd have to say it sounds like only a part solution. It is no doubt a far more renewable product than fossil fuels, but it seems to be no better for the environment. The wiki article alone says this, and other sources seem fairly consistent.

 

 

[bas]

I'll stand by my statement on the previous page, "Solar, hydro, wind, nuclear and geothermal all need large amounts of equipment produced through methods that generally aren't "green" or "clean" too; that equipment usually needs servicing and a fair amount of maintenance over time too, so it isn't as sustainable as it may seem..."

Two things: firstly, just because something isn't 100% green or clean, doesn't mean it doesn't provide a useful reduction. Secondly, this is a "bootstrap" problem. Build enough wind, solar, hydro and nuclear and you suddenly have enough electricity generating capacity both power more processing plants using electricity as well as to make hydrogen fuel using electrolysis to provide fuel for "mobile" power. (i.e.: transport and remote locations.) Then things become really interesting!

 

The Carbon Tax has no effect. (See Diagram Below of Ice Core Data from Vostok, Antarctica - Present Time on the Left, Years are in thousands)

"Years are in the thousand" indeed. A single pixel in this graph spans 600 years, so nowhere near the resolution required to tell what has been happening since the industrial revolution. Here's a a graph someone made earlier:

 

From the Vostok chart you can see that, periodically, temperatures and carbon rise at the same level. This has happened for may reasons; there have been periods of great volcanic activity sending CO2 into the atmosphere, heating up the planet. There have been periods of increased solar activity that increased temperatures, which, combined with the much higher oxygen concentration at the time, caused raging bush fires that emitted large amounts of CO2, causing a chain reaction of even higher temperatures causing more fires.

 

Looking that the 1000-year graph above, it is painfully clear that for close to a 1000 years, the temperature was stable, but when the industrial revolution started, CO2 went up dramatically, and the temperature soon followed. We don't have great many solar-activity fuelled bush fires at the moment, nor a plethora of volcanic eruptions. This is our doing. That nature did it on its own 100,000 years ago is no consolation when seas rise and flood low lying land. Or melting north pole ice disrupts the north atlantic conveyor and starts another ice age in Europe. All because of our fossil fuel burning habits.

 

If we can stop emitting su much CO2 and put off the next naturally-caused ice age another 10,000 years, that's just fine by be, and my grand kids.

 

 

[Ignition]

My point was that Solar panels are solid state devices. No maintenance required. They either work or dont. Maybe the Carbon Tax wont do anything, but it will drive new technologies, and thats what it is supposed to do. Unless it all falls over as Willedoo has highlighted that it might.

No, they don't need maintenance do they? A quick search and found a Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy document for the Australian Greenhouse

Office in the Department of the Environment and Water Resources of the Government of Australia. You aren't necessarily wrong, but maintenance ensures they are operating at the desired performance. (http://www.latrobe.edu.au/ee/solar/information/Electricity%20from%20the%20Sun%20Part%20B.pdf)

 

Cheap electricity cannot possibly lower anyones living standards! I did not intend to ask you about your personal situation. I meant the public in general. A low carbon economy is a cheap system to run. It will benefit everyone. It does not cost nothing to get it up and running, but it is a long term goal.

Whether something is affordable or not is a subjective opinion.

 

"Forcing" the use of ethanol is not supposed to limit us to one product. it is about breaking the cycle of fossil fuels.

But if we have no choice because it is forced on us, are we not limited to the one product? You said on the previous page "Make ethanol in fuel compulsory", we would be limited to Ethanol blended fuel... A bit self-contradictory... I am basically saying, offer as many options as possible, and allow people to pick and use what they want to use.

 

I am not opposed to nuclear, or gas, or oil plants... i only believe we should be encouraging these fantastic "green" technologies that will make all of our lives better.

Is that not what I am saying, "develop both and use both where they are best suited"?

 

You may not like it, but there is plenty of logic.

There is also plenty of logic behind allowing people free choice - your point? I currently make the choice to use E10 fuel in my car, but its nice to be able to use Premium occasionally.

 

Two things: firstly, just because something isn't 100% green or clean, doesn't mean it doesn't provide a useful reduction. Secondly, this is a "bootstrap" problem. Build enough wind, solar, hydro and nuclear and you suddenly have enough electricity generating capacity both power more processing plants using electricity as well as to make hydrogen fuel using electrolysis to provide fuel for "mobile" power. (i.e.: transport and remote locations.) Then things become really interesting!

Exactly, develop both fossil fuel and renewable technology to make them both as efficient as possible and use both where they are best suited. Renewable is still not as sustainable as it seems because they still need materials to be constructed, some people make it out to be magically 100% 'green' - I haven't said anything further by the statement, just the obvious facts that I am sure we all agree with - Renewable Technology also needs materials and maintenance (Are people reading too much into it, it's just a simple factual statement?). I'm not saying don't bother with it, I am in favour of developing all types, rather than disregarding any for whatever reason - as I have said plenty of times in this thread already.

 

"Years are in the thousand" indeed. A single pixel in this graph spans 600 years, so nowhere near the resolution required to tell what has been happening since the industrial revolution. Here's a a graph someone made earlier:

Based on your Industrial Revolution theory: In the years leading up to 1900, the world population slowly grew from approx 275 million people in the year 1000, to approx 1.6 billion in 1900; a change of 1.3 billion people in comparison, in the 100 years, from 1900 to 2000, the population grew from approx 1.6 billion to approx 6 billion people a change of 5.4 billion people in 100 years, significantly higher than the 900 years previous - Extreme population growth, Urban sprawl and destroying forests (natures CO2 to O2 converter) - could this not influence CO2 levels too? How can you say for sure that the industrial revolution is the sole cause of the higher changes?

(http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm)

 

In relation to the Vostok Chart: The Vostok Ice Samples are averaged over a certain amount of years:

 

405844 279.7

 

409022 283.7

 

410831 276.3

 

414085 285.5

 

(Just a quote of 4 samples from the NOAA site from 405,844 years to 414,085 years ago - Roughly 2000-3000 years between sample data)

 

So the CO2 levels during the few centuries at each warmer period of the glacial cycles could have met or exceeded current levels of 360 pmm, but wouldn't be detected in the sample data due to the sample frequency and averaging. The Vostok Chart shows that as each new cycle starts, the variation becomes more frequent, so there could be dramatic changes such as the one in your graph that would go undetected. Can you rule out the possibility that we are still in the last years of the current glacial and that it would not be a natural variation.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking that the 1000-year graph above, it is painfully clear that for close to a 1000 years, the temperature was stable, but when the industrial revolution started, CO2 went up dramatically, and the temperature soon followed. We don't have great many solar-activity fuelled bush fires at the moment, nor a plethora of volcanic eruptions. This is our doing. That nature did it on its own 100,000 years ago is no consolation when seas rise and flood low lying land. Or melting north pole ice disrupts the north atlantic conveyor and starts another ice age in Europe. All because of our fossil fuel burning habits.

Yes, but you can see the average stability in the Vostok Chart, and then it has a natural dramatic change. If your 1000-year graph was 10,000 years and averages over the same frequency as the Vostok Chart, it might mean something more and be able to be compared to the Vostok Chart to see if there really is a non-natural anomoly occuring. You can't get a trend out of it because it is too short a time frame, 1000 years is insignificant and also too small a sample to compare. The fact that nature has done it in a cycle over the past 400,000 years at least is enough to say there is a natural process occurring in a cycle, whether there is anything more, we don't know, there isn't enough data. The Vostok Chart is more reliable when looking at trends.

 

If we can stop emitting su much CO2 and put off the next naturally-caused ice age another 10,000 years, that's just fine by be, and my grand kids.

This is why I don't like "greenies". There will be another cold period of the ice age cycle when it needs to happen, there is no doubt about that. Just look at history. The Earth will do what the Earth does.

 

 

[Guest Nerb]

This is why I don't like "greenies". There will be another cold period of the ice age cycle when it needs to happen, there is no doubt about that. Just look at history. The Earth will do what the Earth does.

Haha. I see now. "not my problem"

 

Bas explained his graph, you disregarded his explanation.

 

 

[Ignition]

Haha. I see now. "not my problem"Bas explained his graph, you disregarded his explanation.

I didn't disregard his explanation, I offered an alternate explanation and questioned his explanation, seems perfectly reasonable.

I give up with you Nerb. You obviously don't understand what I have been saying.

 

 

[willedoo]

There will be another cold period of the ice age cycle when it needs to happen, there is no doubt about that. Just look at history. The Earth will do what the Earth does.

Reminds me of the science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke. He was a bit of predictor of possible future events and one of his last before he died was that we'll introduce measures to combat global warming and by the end of this century, we'll have to start burning fossil fuels to warm the planet up again. He's been right and wrong about equal amounts during his life, so who knows.

 

Back to ethanol, just a question. Is the pro ethanol case concerned mainly with:

 

a. Lower emmissions

 

b. Sustainability

 

or c. Both of the above, and if so, which is the major criteria of the two.

 

Solar panels;

 

Nerb made this point earlier, ' My point was that Solar panels are solid state devices. No maintenance required. They either work or dont.' I suppose the biggest challenge with solar is always going to be battery technology. Seems to be what what's holding it back, and is one of the major on-going costs for an individual to have a total independant of the grid solar set-up. Needs a lot more research and funding there.

 

The dreaded carbon tax:

 

Read a bit more of the newspaper article on this Bloomberg report into Australia's scheme. It will be interesting to read the actual report when it becomes available to the public.

 

The way I understand it, there's a fixed price period of $23/tonne, a bit more than twice the European price, operating from this July until 2015 when a floating cap and trade scheme comes into place. There will be a floor price of $15/tonne from 2015 until 2018, when it will enter a free market ( the way I interpret it, please correct me if that's not right).

 

The concerns of the report are that the price will fall to the floor of $15 in 2015 and fall further in 2019, if the price floor is not extended. When the scheme floats in 2018, it is expected to be closely linked to the international price because under it's rules, companies will have the option of meeting half their emmissions obligations by importing permits from overseas schemes.

 

Without boring everyone with all the details of the report, they basically say the low expected price will encourage companies to stay the way they are and not embrace change.

 

They predict domestic carbon prices can't be maintained without extending the floor price or greater limitation of the use of internatinal permits. The Australian price rises if the import limit is below 40%, 15% imports =$19.60 and cutting imports to 5% lifts the price to $31.50. As per a previous post, they estimate $35/tonne is needed to drive a change from coal to gas.

 

I'm not sure how to interpret all that, but it sounds like the current model will need a few adjustments in the future. One risk might be that if the rest of the world doesn't step up to the plate, we might be left with a very costly exercise that doesn't deliver what it intended. Or more simply that we don't get out of it what we put in to it.

 

One issue is these imports of foreign permits. Australian companies will be able to provide the majority of their abatement responsibilities by buying credits from overseas, rather than doing something real in this country. From a global perspective, buying foreign permits still means someone in the world earned those credits in the first place, so that amount of carbon is still locked up. And maybe that's not so bad. It would be nice to reduce Australia's footprint, but in reality, we produce about 1% of the world's carbon, so having our companies just buy their way out of it is probably a better contribution than a lot of other countries are making.

 

Just one last point - farmers, particularly those who crow sugarcane, wheat , barley or any other crops of the grass species.

 

I've mentioned this before somewhere else on this forum. In recent years, scientists have found that grass crops like bamboo, cane and grain crops ( or even pasture grass)

 

develop nodules in their root system, each about the size of a grain of sand. These nodules lock up carbon from the atmosphere for about seventy years. The good news is that they're rock hard and conventional cultivation will not crack them open and release the carbon. You can plough as much as you like, without any detrimental effect to the carbon storing ability. Cane farmers, traditionally demonized by the green movement, are now copping a pat on the back. It's been estimated that for every tonne of carbon they produce, they lock up three (for seventy years). I don't know of any other industry anywhere in the world that can achieve those results for the environment.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that farmers are sequesting two out of three tonnes of carbon. But I havent heard any talk of them being issued with carbon credits by the Australian Government. If Australia was fair dinkum about all this, their carbon estimates would be done like any other industry, and they would be issued with credits that they could sell for $23/tonne to the big companies. So I think the Government is getting a bit of a freebie there at the farmers expense. I can understand why some people are very sceptical of this scheme, it doesn't sound like it was very well thought out. Perhaps we should have delayed it to enable a bit more researching to try and get it right.

 

 

[Guest Nerb]

I didn't disregard his explanation, I offered an alternate explanation and questioned his explanation, seems perfectly reasonable.I give up with you Nerb. You obviously don't understand what I have been saying.

Im sorry, im frustrated. There are those who buy a prius saying "im supporting a green future" and there are those that dont buy one and say "building a prius emits more greenhouse gasses than it will save in its lifetime". Both statements are true, but adopted by very different attitudes. We're likely at opposite ends of the scale.

 

 

[dazza 38]

When I can, I ride my motorbike instead of driving my Nissan Patrol 4.2 litre Turbo Diesel. Not because Im worried about polution.. I couldnt give a rats, Australia makes next to nothing in polution on the world scale.It is just revenue raising all the carbon tax BS. I do it because the bike is more economical and MORE FUN.:)

 

 

[bas]

Australia makes next to nothing in polution on the world scale.

Don't forget we have the highest output of CO2 per capita in the world, and unlike Europe and the US, let alone China, no manufacturing to speak of so once you add the pollution added on our behalf by those we import from (who do so by burning the dirty coal we sell them) ... the mind boggles. Australians are the dirtiest bunch on the planet by far.

You have to lead by example...

 

 

[dazza 38]

True Bas, but unless everybody (countries I mean ) all come together and do their part.I dont think alot is going to change. We are a little country in population .:)