Industry needs and Consumer needs "fuels"
#1
03-17-2005, 09:15 PM
Industry needs and Consumer needs "fuels"
I was reading about the drilling in Alaska. I am concerned, and I'd like to say that this is a plan to hold us over till we develope other fuels. However, I don't think that is what this is about.
GM is currently worth about 16 billion dollars. Harley about 17 billion. Do you see a problem here?
Lets face it, the legacy automakers have a bunch of baggage. They have unions to deal with, retired folks, that made the corporation billions, and the corporation has an obligation to take care of those people. As consumers, especially American consumers, we demand large vehicles. We demand cheap prices and we demand higher wages. If GM, or other US auto companies flounder, the ripple across all age groups will be tremendous.
Look at the legacy airlines. A corporations first and main concern is keeping itself intact. It will cut everything, except corporate salaries in most cases to keep shareholders, holding shares. To a public trading company, the shareholder is key to survival. Confidence is key to actual survival. I would hate to see what would happen if a company like GE, though incredibly diversified started losing market share across the board. It could very well happen. You could almost say a company like GE is the thread that holds this company together. Using GE as an example, 4 cents of every dollar in the US economy has something to do with GE. I don't know the exact example, but that is insanely huge.
The fuels:
I'm pretty liberal. I have a truck that gets 15mpg, and a car that gets 45mpg.
That means I average 30mpg. I prefer to drive my truck, but gas is expensive, so the truck might get 50miles a week put on it, while the car is seeing 600 miles. As a consumer, my personal goal is to save as much on fuel as I can. As a citizen, my goal is to help drive down demand for fuel.
Large jet aircraft need to burn Jet A. No hybriding here. It is necessary for us to travel fast and with large groups of people.
Trains and Buses can go hybrid, saving probably at least 10 percent of there current consumption.
As for general power consumption, I'd like to see every large office building with solar cells, mountain tops and off shore power stations bristeling with wind mills. and off shore wave capturing generators.
I don't know what this would do to our economy though.
On a more personal note, I hope to have the enire south facing part of my house covered in solar panels in the next 5 years. I have more to say, but I'm falling asleep.....
GM is currently worth about 16 billion dollars. Harley about 17 billion. Do you see a problem here?
Lets face it, the legacy automakers have a bunch of baggage. They have unions to deal with, retired folks, that made the corporation billions, and the corporation has an obligation to take care of those people. As consumers, especially American consumers, we demand large vehicles. We demand cheap prices and we demand higher wages. If GM, or other US auto companies flounder, the ripple across all age groups will be tremendous.
Look at the legacy airlines. A corporations first and main concern is keeping itself intact. It will cut everything, except corporate salaries in most cases to keep shareholders, holding shares. To a public trading company, the shareholder is key to survival. Confidence is key to actual survival. I would hate to see what would happen if a company like GE, though incredibly diversified started losing market share across the board. It could very well happen. You could almost say a company like GE is the thread that holds this company together. Using GE as an example, 4 cents of every dollar in the US economy has something to do with GE. I don't know the exact example, but that is insanely huge.
The fuels:
I'm pretty liberal. I have a truck that gets 15mpg, and a car that gets 45mpg.
That means I average 30mpg. I prefer to drive my truck, but gas is expensive, so the truck might get 50miles a week put on it, while the car is seeing 600 miles. As a consumer, my personal goal is to save as much on fuel as I can. As a citizen, my goal is to help drive down demand for fuel.
Large jet aircraft need to burn Jet A. No hybriding here. It is necessary for us to travel fast and with large groups of people.
Trains and Buses can go hybrid, saving probably at least 10 percent of there current consumption.
As for general power consumption, I'd like to see every large office building with solar cells, mountain tops and off shore power stations bristeling with wind mills. and off shore wave capturing generators.
I don't know what this would do to our economy though.
On a more personal note, I hope to have the enire south facing part of my house covered in solar panels in the next 5 years. I have more to say, but I'm falling asleep.....
#2
03-18-2005, 04:26 PM
Most trains already are 'hybrid'. They have a deisle engine that powers a generator for electric motors. Mountain tops and off shore power stations are out of the question, but why a windmill couldnt be build in conjunction with our powerlines or highways is beyond me. (cost?) Of course, to me, in the imediate future the fuel of choice should be bio-fuels. If the US stopped paying farmers to not grow corn, and instead switch to bio-diesle and corn alcohol our foreign/petrol fuel needs would go down drastically.
#3
03-18-2005, 04:58 PM
Number one, read this:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
It makes the economic viability and land-usage case for biodiesel. Short version - we have plenty of money and land to switch to biodiesel once we start running out of fossil oil and biodiesel becomes more cost effective in comparitive terms.
Number two, you said "I have a truck that gets 15mpg, and a car that gets 45mpg. That means I average 30mpg."
I hate to nitpick, but mathematically, if you drove each car the same number of miles per year, your average is 22.5mpg, not 30mpg. This is based on the fact that you'd be using 3 times as many gallons of gas in the 15mpg vehicle than the 45mpg vehicle. Minor detail.
I'm not sure what your beef with GM is. They produce a lot of highly inefficient vehicles, and they are in poor financial shape. If you're for conservation, you should be happy to see that a company that does not produce very efficient vehicles is not doing well.
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
It makes the economic viability and land-usage case for biodiesel. Short version - we have plenty of money and land to switch to biodiesel once we start running out of fossil oil and biodiesel becomes more cost effective in comparitive terms.
Number two, you said "I have a truck that gets 15mpg, and a car that gets 45mpg. That means I average 30mpg."
I hate to nitpick, but mathematically, if you drove each car the same number of miles per year, your average is 22.5mpg, not 30mpg. This is based on the fact that you'd be using 3 times as many gallons of gas in the 15mpg vehicle than the 45mpg vehicle. Minor detail.
I'm not sure what your beef with GM is. They produce a lot of highly inefficient vehicles, and they are in poor financial shape. If you're for conservation, you should be happy to see that a company that does not produce very efficient vehicles is not doing well.
#4
03-19-2005, 05:02 AM
Nitpicking is good. Your math is correct. We drive our truck about 50-100 miles a week, and the civic 500-600 per week. We just drive the truck when we need it.
AZ Civic, I would agree with you 100 percent on trying to be more environmentally concious, and a kick in the crotch is what some companies need like GM to get its act straight. What I'm getting at is jobs, and overall financial health of our country.
I'm just using GM as an example:
-Retired auto union workers get a pretty good pention.
-As we get older, our health care goes up substantially, and our financial contributions aren't as great to the commonwealth.
-High pay demands of us labor unions.
-Poor "current" market strategy based on consumer demand. +++This poor demand is based on higer fuel prices.
Based on the above small criteria,
-current jobs are going to be lost
-companies will restructure medical benefits that favor the corporation and they will get away with it because the market isn't demanding there product, and they will use this as leverage.
-companies will go after the retirement plans because they know that the labor end of the house must look after its current folks.
This is all reactionary stuff that effects the middle class the most.
All the gas guzzling companies are hurting, because they decided that they made the most profit on a station wagon on steroids that required nill for R&D.
On the other end of the spectrum, how many jobs will be created with bio-fuels per gallon in comparison to jobs in the current oil industry in the same wage grade? Jobs per Kilowatt, per gallon, per Amp Hour is how I would say we must compare the two very different views of fuel from crops and fuel from drilling.
Can this be moderated? I think so. It is kind of working backwards, but if we base our energy prices around the cost of using renuable sources, we can control the amount and cost of fossil fuels. Just an idea. In many cases it would mean even higher prices, but it would reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
Now try to sell that to the american public. "You are going to pay more, but it is better for the economy as a whole, and the environment.
Almost communistic in a way.
AZ Civic, I would agree with you 100 percent on trying to be more environmentally concious, and a kick in the crotch is what some companies need like GM to get its act straight. What I'm getting at is jobs, and overall financial health of our country.
I'm just using GM as an example:
-Retired auto union workers get a pretty good pention.
-As we get older, our health care goes up substantially, and our financial contributions aren't as great to the commonwealth.
-High pay demands of us labor unions.
-Poor "current" market strategy based on consumer demand. +++This poor demand is based on higer fuel prices.
Based on the above small criteria,
-current jobs are going to be lost
-companies will restructure medical benefits that favor the corporation and they will get away with it because the market isn't demanding there product, and they will use this as leverage.
-companies will go after the retirement plans because they know that the labor end of the house must look after its current folks.
This is all reactionary stuff that effects the middle class the most.
All the gas guzzling companies are hurting, because they decided that they made the most profit on a station wagon on steroids that required nill for R&D.
On the other end of the spectrum, how many jobs will be created with bio-fuels per gallon in comparison to jobs in the current oil industry in the same wage grade? Jobs per Kilowatt, per gallon, per Amp Hour is how I would say we must compare the two very different views of fuel from crops and fuel from drilling.
Can this be moderated? I think so. It is kind of working backwards, but if we base our energy prices around the cost of using renuable sources, we can control the amount and cost of fossil fuels. Just an idea. In many cases it would mean even higher prices, but it would reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
Now try to sell that to the american public. "You are going to pay more, but it is better for the economy as a whole, and the environment.
Almost communistic in a way.
#5
03-19-2005, 06:24 AM
I think we're at the dawn of a new age, to be perfectly honest. This goes back to that article in the off-topic area about "bobos" or whatever. That basically the social elitism of the 1970's and early 80's was built around consumerism and the whole "greed is good" theme. Now we're entering a period where you're considered an elitist if you choose to spend a little extra on your car not for chrome spinners, but for the ability to get 50mpg and put out lower emissions than virtually vehicle on the road. All of a sudden it's cool to be socially conscious.
People love to say "I told you so." It's just part of human nature. Competition is natural and good, but if you want to progress the society as a whole there needs to be some way to focus competition in directions that actually improve everyone's situation. For the last 10 years or so automakers have been in a horsepower war. It's been cool because most are able to produce this power without dramatically decreasing fuel economy. A 180hp VW Golf 1.8T gets pretty similar gas mileage to a 1984 VW Rabbit, while having far higher levels of safety, refinement, and clean emissions.
Trends take time to go through. A lot of money in the US economy vanishes into things that are meaningless. I prepare my own meals for probably 97% of what I eat. I go out maybe once a month, and even then it's typically just to order a pizza or something. I just don't have any interest in paying $15-25 when I could eat at home for $2-5 or something. "Entertainment" makes people happy, but it doesn't actually contribute to the increase of worker productivity or improving standards of living, yet something like 13 or 18% (I can't find the study anymore) of the disposable income of the average American goes to "entertainment". These are all areas where people will simply cut back when costs for required deliverables like food an energy go up. This then creates competition to improve efficiency in whatever area costs went up so that people can go back to wasting their money on entertainment.
I'm starting to believe that they real key to improving worker productivity is having strong economic cycles. If we were on a slow, steady upward swing, many people would never really see that anything is getting any better, and not be motivated to do much to improve themselves. If however, you have a wild swing upwards, people get a taste of things they never had access to before, then suddenly the market crashes and 3 years later they've lost 50% of their cool stuff. This makes them MAD and more importantly, makes them motivated to do whatever it takes to get back to where they were years earlier. This is the very nature of spurring innovation and creativity to improve overall efficiency and productivity of a society.
People love to say "I told you so." It's just part of human nature. Competition is natural and good, but if you want to progress the society as a whole there needs to be some way to focus competition in directions that actually improve everyone's situation. For the last 10 years or so automakers have been in a horsepower war. It's been cool because most are able to produce this power without dramatically decreasing fuel economy. A 180hp VW Golf 1.8T gets pretty similar gas mileage to a 1984 VW Rabbit, while having far higher levels of safety, refinement, and clean emissions.
Trends take time to go through. A lot of money in the US economy vanishes into things that are meaningless. I prepare my own meals for probably 97% of what I eat. I go out maybe once a month, and even then it's typically just to order a pizza or something. I just don't have any interest in paying $15-25 when I could eat at home for $2-5 or something. "Entertainment" makes people happy, but it doesn't actually contribute to the increase of worker productivity or improving standards of living, yet something like 13 or 18% (I can't find the study anymore) of the disposable income of the average American goes to "entertainment". These are all areas where people will simply cut back when costs for required deliverables like food an energy go up. This then creates competition to improve efficiency in whatever area costs went up so that people can go back to wasting their money on entertainment.
I'm starting to believe that they real key to improving worker productivity is having strong economic cycles. If we were on a slow, steady upward swing, many people would never really see that anything is getting any better, and not be motivated to do much to improve themselves. If however, you have a wild swing upwards, people get a taste of things they never had access to before, then suddenly the market crashes and 3 years later they've lost 50% of their cool stuff. This makes them MAD and more importantly, makes them motivated to do whatever it takes to get back to where they were years earlier. This is the very nature of spurring innovation and creativity to improve overall efficiency and productivity of a society.
#6
03-19-2005, 10:49 AM
I can definitely agree with that. I remember in the late 80's and early 90's when times were pretty tough. Interest rates were high, and it seemed that all the blue chip stock was dragging along the bottom. Then in the mid 90's, the economy just took off, and nothing seemed impossible. Cheap fuel, falling interest rates, and everyone was buying a house.
Now, like you said, people have gotten a taste of the good life, and they want it back. Its hard everywhere.
-IT is moving everything it can to India.
-Even things that can be outsourced overseas like aircraft component repair are being sent out. I think there will be laws against this within the next two years due to regulatory policies.
I love my Civic. Am I an elitist? Probably to a degree. When I see SUV's flying by me on the interstate, "and I'm doing 70mph" all I can think is they have no concept of what they are doing to there pocket book and the economy, and driving a higher demand for fuel.
I still think though that the legacy companies of the U.S. need to look at there overall responsibilities.
Too many of the top dogs are not looking out for there people, just the stockholders, and themselves. That isn't what made the company strong to begin with. It was people who had faith in a vision for many companies, and the bean counters ran it to there advantage once they were allowed to get there fingers into it.
I do hope that we are going to enter a new age of how business is done.
Now, like you said, people have gotten a taste of the good life, and they want it back. Its hard everywhere.
-IT is moving everything it can to India.
-Even things that can be outsourced overseas like aircraft component repair are being sent out. I think there will be laws against this within the next two years due to regulatory policies.
I love my Civic. Am I an elitist? Probably to a degree. When I see SUV's flying by me on the interstate, "and I'm doing 70mph" all I can think is they have no concept of what they are doing to there pocket book and the economy, and driving a higher demand for fuel.
I still think though that the legacy companies of the U.S. need to look at there overall responsibilities.
Too many of the top dogs are not looking out for there people, just the stockholders, and themselves. That isn't what made the company strong to begin with. It was people who had faith in a vision for many companies, and the bean counters ran it to there advantage once they were allowed to get there fingers into it.
I do hope that we are going to enter a new age of how business is done.
#7
03-20-2005, 05:20 AM
guys- I'd like to pull this thread a little to the side. I can't relate to national business trends & drives so well, but to bring the issue to a more immediate angle - I think we need to somehow inform/educate/convince the average consumer that saving energy in any form is a positive contribution; whether it's spending an extra 3K and saving $1000/yr in gas while reducing national consumption or cutting energy in other ways.
I'm a residencial architect and I see it every day: people are willing to spend 30-50 thousand dollars on a kitchen 'upgrade' with luxury brand appliances & every bell and whistle, but they're not willing to upgrade their insulation to reduce their heating bill. Or add a 150K addition, (common cost for a small - 1000sqft addition her in ny) but again not upgrade insulation from fiberglass (.75/sqft) to foam (3.00/sqft) which is like 3% of the budget. And the electric bill goes up too. people don't realize when they want to make their old room "brighter" and they change over from their old ceiling fixture to 8 new recessed lights - now they have 6 more light bulbs to power- multiply by every room in the house.
I'll be glad when 'elitism' starts making conservation more popular.
- but I don't really see it happening yet. sure the bobo's are buying prius' which shout: look at me, I'm driving a hybrid (no offense prius owners 
) but are they downsizing thier mcmansions ala 'the not so big house' concept? (smaller w/ more quality spaces) are they installing more energy efficient systems? Are they willing to take $20K out of their $50-K kitchen budget and install a solar system? I don't think we've gotten to that stage yet. people still want their convienences, and time is the ultimate driving factor it seems. everyone is always in a rush
- can we slow down to 55 on the highway- no, I have to get to grandma's, we only have 1 day because bobby has hockey, and susie has play practise. I don't want to make this trip 6 hours at 55mph, it's 4.5 hours at 70mph.
- can my daughter walk to school today- no, she stayed up too late last night watching the boob tube, and didn't get up early enough to take the extra 20 minutes to walk to school. So you drive her along with 100 other parents lined up outside the school.
-on and on....
how do you/we convince people that downsizing thier energy demands doesn't mean downsizing their life? that once you get over the mental hump (I'm not quite there yet) of driving slower than everyone else - you're calmer and less stressed? That 15 black solar arrays on their roof isn't ugly - it's actually way cooler than that big kitchenaid refrigerator (and costs about the same) because it makes clean re-newable energy.
nobody sees the big picture anymore because our lifestyle is too disconnected from nature - we don't have the powerplant smokestacks in our neighborhood and the dead fish aren't washing up on our own backyards (ok, that's overly dramatic - the fish mostly aren't dead, they're flesh is just poisoned or they're not there at all) - but the point is that much of the enviromental effects of oil & gas consumption are invisible, and so ignored by the average consumer, which brings you back to each persons daily style driven by time and convienence.
All I can do is tell them my car gets 45mpg and my heating bill went down 10%. Convince one person at a time.......
(and I think the civic is the true 'stealth' hybrid: no one knows it's a hybrid - it looks like all the other hondas!)
I'm a residencial architect and I see it every day: people are willing to spend 30-50 thousand dollars on a kitchen 'upgrade' with luxury brand appliances & every bell and whistle, but they're not willing to upgrade their insulation to reduce their heating bill. Or add a 150K addition, (common cost for a small - 1000sqft addition her in ny) but again not upgrade insulation from fiberglass (.75/sqft) to foam (3.00/sqft) which is like 3% of the budget. And the electric bill goes up too. people don't realize when they want to make their old room "brighter" and they change over from their old ceiling fixture to 8 new recessed lights - now they have 6 more light bulbs to power- multiply by every room in the house.
I'll be glad when 'elitism' starts making conservation more popular.
I think we're at the dawn of a new age, to be perfectly honest. This goes back to that article in the off-topic area about "bobos" or whatever. That basically the social elitism of the 1970's and early 80's was built around consumerism and the whole "greed is good" theme. Now we're entering a period where you're considered an elitist if you choose to spend a little extra on your car not for chrome spinners, but for the ability to get 50mpg and put out lower emissions than virtually vehicle on the road. All of a sudden it's cool to be socially conscious.
) but are they downsizing thier mcmansions ala 'the not so big house' concept? (smaller w/ more quality spaces) are they installing more energy efficient systems? Are they willing to take $20K out of their $50-K kitchen budget and install a solar system? I don't think we've gotten to that stage yet. people still want their convienences, and time is the ultimate driving factor it seems. everyone is always in a rush - can we slow down to 55 on the highway- no, I have to get to grandma's, we only have 1 day because bobby has hockey, and susie has play practise. I don't want to make this trip 6 hours at 55mph, it's 4.5 hours at 70mph.
- can my daughter walk to school today- no, she stayed up too late last night watching the boob tube, and didn't get up early enough to take the extra 20 minutes to walk to school. So you drive her along with 100 other parents lined up outside the school.
-on and on....
how do you/we convince people that downsizing thier energy demands doesn't mean downsizing their life? that once you get over the mental hump (I'm not quite there yet) of driving slower than everyone else - you're calmer and less stressed? That 15 black solar arrays on their roof isn't ugly - it's actually way cooler than that big kitchenaid refrigerator (and costs about the same) because it makes clean re-newable energy.
nobody sees the big picture anymore because our lifestyle is too disconnected from nature - we don't have the powerplant smokestacks in our neighborhood and the dead fish aren't washing up on our own backyards (ok, that's overly dramatic - the fish mostly aren't dead, they're flesh is just poisoned or they're not there at all) - but the point is that much of the enviromental effects of oil & gas consumption are invisible, and so ignored by the average consumer, which brings you back to each persons daily style driven by time and convienence.
All I can do is tell them my car gets 45mpg and my heating bill went down 10%. Convince one person at a time.......
(and I think the civic is the true 'stealth' hybrid: no one knows it's a hybrid - it looks like all the other hondas!)
#8
03-20-2005, 06:17 PM
That was a great post! It is all very true. We have one of the smallest houses in our neighborhood, and it is about 2500 square feet without the basement.
I have brought up solar power to my neighbors and they said just what you said. "It so ugly and tacky, why would you do that"?
I would do it for a couple of reasons. First to limit my need for power from the grid. I want a bit of control, even if it costs me more.
Also, I put a 2 solar powered fans in my attic. In the summer, they are wonderful. It helps keep the heat from building in the summer time. Believe it or not, it also keeps the AC from running so much in the heat of the day. We have a bunch of ceiling fans too. That helps as well.
This year, I'm putting in a pellot furnace to supplement the gas heat. Hopefully it will cut down on our gas bill quite a bit in the winter.
Education is important, but like you said people are all about convenience. We live the the DC metropolitan area, and getting anywhere, anytime of the week is terrible. If we want to get out of town, we rent an airplane. We can leave at 8 AM, after having a nice breakfast and be in North Carolina on the beach having lunch by noon. We get in the plane at about 5pm, and we are home before the sun goes down, and having dinner. I've learned lead footing it, just isn't worth it.
I figure a good Solar system can supplement out lighting and some appliances. I don't know if it can fire the AC, or run the dryer, but those draw lots of amps. I would be happy to fire the blower motor on the furnace. Even if the initial start-up amps are too great, the solar system should be able to handle the load after start.
I had thought of replacing the AC/Heating system with a geo-thermal cooling system, but Leginairs Disease is a concern if the water grows bacteria in it. I'm all for maximum efficiency, and I do feel if people put the environmental concerns in there life, they would understand some of these things. It just isn't in most peoples vocabulary.
I have brought up solar power to my neighbors and they said just what you said. "It so ugly and tacky, why would you do that"?
I would do it for a couple of reasons. First to limit my need for power from the grid. I want a bit of control, even if it costs me more.
Also, I put a 2 solar powered fans in my attic. In the summer, they are wonderful. It helps keep the heat from building in the summer time. Believe it or not, it also keeps the AC from running so much in the heat of the day. We have a bunch of ceiling fans too. That helps as well.
This year, I'm putting in a pellot furnace to supplement the gas heat. Hopefully it will cut down on our gas bill quite a bit in the winter.
Education is important, but like you said people are all about convenience. We live the the DC metropolitan area, and getting anywhere, anytime of the week is terrible. If we want to get out of town, we rent an airplane. We can leave at 8 AM, after having a nice breakfast and be in North Carolina on the beach having lunch by noon. We get in the plane at about 5pm, and we are home before the sun goes down, and having dinner. I've learned lead footing it, just isn't worth it.
I figure a good Solar system can supplement out lighting and some appliances. I don't know if it can fire the AC, or run the dryer, but those draw lots of amps. I would be happy to fire the blower motor on the furnace. Even if the initial start-up amps are too great, the solar system should be able to handle the load after start.
I had thought of replacing the AC/Heating system with a geo-thermal cooling system, but Leginairs Disease is a concern if the water grows bacteria in it. I'm all for maximum efficiency, and I do feel if people put the environmental concerns in there life, they would understand some of these things. It just isn't in most peoples vocabulary.
#9
03-20-2005, 09:22 PM
Challenger,
Would the geo-thermal cooling system be the one w/ a duct running x number of feet into the ground and then back up to suply a cooler or wamer charge of air depending on ouside temperature?
Would the geo-thermal cooling system be the one w/ a duct running x number of feet into the ground and then back up to suply a cooler or wamer charge of air depending on ouside temperature?
#10
03-21-2005, 06:08 AM
Challenger-
I don't think there's an issue with molds in a geothermal system. I don't know a lot about them, but I think they use a heat exchanger with the fluid that's cooled/heated in the ground which then exchanges with your house system.
there's a good article in the feb. issue of Journal of Light Construction. (tried to get a link to it on the web, but I think you have to pay to download it, or find a copy at the library)
back to fuel:
went to a trade show last week and listened to Steven Amendola, a chemist discuss how to use waste heat energy of power plants (something like 60% of a natural gas plant's energy is given off in waste heat in the stacks!) to make hydrogen and recombine that & other waste gases (ammonia) into urea, which is a harmless, stable solid that he says has the potential fuel energy of gasoline.
He's already made a fuel cell vehicle with borax -
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...A8809EC588EEDF
(I don't know if this link will work but you can search his name)
anyway - it's exciting to know the technology and ideas are coming together - now we just have to get the corporations to build the infrastructure: $$$$$$$. how much will it cost to convert a coal or gas plant into recapturing waste energy & gases (and reducing atmoshperic pollution) and producing additional fuel sources??
it took the gas crisis of the 70's to get car manufacturers to start considering mpg. maybe if gas goes up to $80/barrel the hybrids will get ALOT more popular - and there will be a renewed push for other energy ideas - aside from, lets just dig somewhere else for more oil.
I don't think there's an issue with molds in a geothermal system. I don't know a lot about them, but I think they use a heat exchanger with the fluid that's cooled/heated in the ground which then exchanges with your house system.
there's a good article in the feb. issue of Journal of Light Construction. (tried to get a link to it on the web, but I think you have to pay to download it, or find a copy at the library)
back to fuel:
went to a trade show last week and listened to Steven Amendola, a chemist discuss how to use waste heat energy of power plants (something like 60% of a natural gas plant's energy is given off in waste heat in the stacks!) to make hydrogen and recombine that & other waste gases (ammonia) into urea, which is a harmless, stable solid that he says has the potential fuel energy of gasoline.
He's already made a fuel cell vehicle with borax -
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...A8809EC588EEDF
(I don't know if this link will work but you can search his name)
anyway - it's exciting to know the technology and ideas are coming together - now we just have to get the corporations to build the infrastructure: $$$$$$$. how much will it cost to convert a coal or gas plant into recapturing waste energy & gases (and reducing atmoshperic pollution) and producing additional fuel sources??
it took the gas crisis of the 70's to get car manufacturers to start considering mpg. maybe if gas goes up to $80/barrel the hybrids will get ALOT more popular - and there will be a renewed push for other energy ideas - aside from, lets just dig somewhere else for more oil.
