[aldo_14]

We can't rely on what might be developed, though.  Otherwise it's the same as doing nothing.  There's not going to be a single 'BANG...solution' case here, it'll just be many, many years of bringing in cleaner tech and practices.

Ethanol, at least, is a bit of an improvement, and it can be done justnow (amongst other things).  So IMO it's a candidate for adoption.

[IceFire]

We aren't going to buck up and solve the environmental problem till people stop being ignorant about the problems that we cause.  Most likely, that will happen precisely one day after we have a major environmental crisis.

By then...it may be too late and the rest of us will say we told you so but none of you ever ****ing listened because you were too busy thinking short term profits.

[Thrilla]

I seen a guy on TV that used his diesel truck that he converted to use grease from local restaurants.  His truck used its diesel engine to start it and heat up to the right temperature, and then it would switch over to the grease.  He gets like 900 miles to a tank.  Or hell if you want to make biodiesel yourself then here.  

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_mike.html






I don't think that such things as hydrogen fueled cars and other alternatives energy sources are all that far fetched.  I think that history has proven that when we have a heavy demand for something we can do things that many say are far fetched.  Look at how the world was in 1890 or even 1900, and then look at where we are now.  In 1903 the Wright brothers little plane went about as far as I can throw a styrofoam glider.  Now look at aircraft.  It takes me 3 hours to get to New York from DFW International.  Hell look at cars.  Back in 1900 cars were a luxury, and then people like Ford had visions and seen a hidden demand for a market, and look what happened.  50 years later just about every family in America had a car.  Or even going to the moon.  It took less than 30 years for humans to make space travel to our nearest nieghbor possible, and on what?  A computer that was about as powerful as my cell phone in my pocket.  Unfortunatly I think it is going to take a major energy crisis for it to happen, but I believe that the problem will be solved some how.  I don't doubt our ability to figure things out as long as our society has a need, and there are people willing to try.  I don't doubt that once we run out of gasoline, that within a couple of years the car companies will produce the best damned electric truck that would produce results close to standard trucks today.

[Flaser]

Beside reducing individual CO2 emission, we should more importantly reduce overall emission of the population, and just get rid of some of the luxuries that do us little good.

Well managed, funded and used public transportation is godsend to a metropolis.

I would ban the use of private cars in several cities and give license only for industrial purposes or you could get a temporary license for an increasingly hefty sum - so the rich could still tote around their cars but they'd have to pay for it.

The public baths of Rome were not only medical and sanitary facilities, but centres of culture and just plain interaction that we seem to lack nowadays.
I wouldn't mind going to such a place - especially in some of the new age communities with unisex policies :devil: - 2/3 of the time.

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]There is an awful lot of evidence that a lot of technologies are intentionally strangled to milk the last of the cash potential out of existing tech.

It's a money game, powerful people think only for their own gains, gains that are short term and fleeting.
[/color]

[Swamp_Thing]

Alternative energy sources will only get real attention by consumers when it starts hurting them where the pain is greatest: their wallet. Until then the average Joe will go on using what all the other Joes and Janes use. Fossil fuels.
However, i sense that day is nigh. We are on the virge of another oil crisis, worst even than the other 2 in the 70´s. Crude oil is already being sold at over 54 dollars a barrel. When it reaches 60, you will see a true economic disaster brewing. Many companies will just close down, because they can´t affoard the cost of energy. Unemployment skyrockets, more companies close, salaries drop, and it´s the Great Depression all over again.
Maybe then these alternate energies get the attention its due.

You know, if only the oil cartels would use the money to research them, but nooo!! They raised oil prices by 200% in the last years, for no reason. It´s not like it costs more to drill the oil than it costed 10 years ago. It´s not like production droped or anything. Oil production is at an all time high, we´ve never seen so much oil being infused in the markets. So why the extra prices? For greed. Nothing more than greed.
If they used those funds to research other options, i would understand. I would even suck it up and pay the extra everytime i´d stop at the gas station. But those oil tycoons are using the money to stuff their bank accounts...

[pyro-manic]

OK, I'm not going to get involved in the debate that seems to have taken over here. You all know my position on the environment and certain corporate/governmental relationships, so I'm not going to waste time repeating myself.


Moving onto anti-grav technology - I read an article in Flight International magazine (the weekly news mag for the aviation industry) about a microwave "repulsor" engine. It's being developed at the moment, though I don't know all the details. I looked for the article online, but you can't acces FI's news archive without a subscription... Anyway, it looked very interesting, and has potential...

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Liberator

However, when the leadership preaches things like fuel economy and lowered resource usage to the masses and then climbs into a Suburban to go to a steak dinner I question their motives.  When they demand that the general public do without and they themselves continue to drive Hummers and Porches, I question them.

[/b]

How many environmental scientists are there on salaries like that, and will the jobs still be open when I graduate? I don't think so.

Originally posted by Liberator

If the Enviromentalist movement wants to be taken seriously.  They need to step up and develop some kind of plan that will detail how they intend to replace the gas burners with electrics and how they intend to generate that electricity cheaply and on a mass scale.  This plan needs to be simple enough for Joe Blow on the street to comprehend without blowing out the 5 brain cells he's got left after spending half his life in a drunken stupor.

Err... they have. It's getting the people at the top to listen that's the problem. Decentralized energy through rooftop solar cells that feedback into the grid. Hydrogen fuel cells with direct hydrogen extraction from water using solar power. And if we want to look at some other environemtal problems - Increased emphasis on a transition from consumer to conserver society through the expansion of recycling programs (stuff like curbside, which is what we have here, being expanded into government funded paid reclaimation systems ala South Australia's bottle system and other stuff like that). Diminish global fishing and emphasize aquaculture and mariculture through farmers subsidies. Fund programs like the Oil Mallee Project. Compulsory revegetation. Carbon credits. Get America (and Australia for that matter) to ratify Kyoto. Tighten up environmental controls in places like China, Brazil and India (Non first world counmtries with lots of people and rapidly growing economies)There's no magic bullet that'll fix all our environmental problems, but pretending that nobody's come up with any kind of plan to start the process of sorting things out is... just plain wrong.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

wait a minute Lib, you went from calling people who say that we have caused a bunch of ecological problems...whackos...to calling people whacko for believing in the ideals....even if the leaders of the movement don't follow those ideals.  That's almost like saying...you are a whacko because you believe in the same god that some televangelist believes in and supposedly serves, collecting money from widows and financing his new lear jet.

I believe in the environmental movement, we are trashing the environment, and until such a time as people look beyond thier noses and see the truth, we will continue to trash it.  People who actually want to save it aren't whackos.  People who don't ignore the fact that we are destroying it aren't whackos.  Maybe if you KNEW that the environment would be a mess and crushed utterly, before the second coming, it would make a difference to you.  Maybe then you would be willing to listen to reason.  

The planet is facing serious problems, and it takes serious people to work them out, if you don't want to help, that's fine, but to call the people who do want to help whackos is another matter entirely.  To me, people who continuously ignore the threat to our children and grandchildren are the true whackos.  If someone put a gun to my daughter's head i would take that very seriously.  So while people sit there and smugly say that we didn't **** the environment, i say that if we keep stripping away the plantlife and the trees, we will eventually run out of oxygen.  

While we may not cause some of the problems, we do in fact help them to grow, and then we wonder how the hell it happened.  It's like not paying the electric bill and then wondering why the electric company shut it off.

whackos...indeed.

[Styxx]

Originally posted by Bobboau
ethanol's bull.

Yeah. Tell that to everyone around here who spends a bit more than half as much in fuel as they'd spend if they used gasoline in their cars... Not even counting the fact that it pollutes a lot less than gasoline and is a solution that is viable, and being used throughout a country of 180 million, right now.

[Bobboau]

do you take into consiteration all of the energy used to make/distribute it, not to mention the land that has to be cleared to grow the fuel crop, and it still polutes unlike the two technologies I mentioned.

[Styxx]

Originally posted by Bobboau
do you take into consiteration all of the energy used to make/distribute it, not to mention the land that has to be cleared to grow the fuel crop, and it still polutes unlike the two technologies I mentioned.

Yes, I do. And it still comes out on top. Land is not a problem, it creates jobs, there are many byproducts that can be used, it can use the existing fuel distribution infrastructure, it doesn't require any technological breakthrough, and there's still a lot of room for improvement on agricultural and distillation technologies to make it even more efficient.

So yeah, it's a perfectly renewable fuel source that doesn't pollute nearly as much as oil that can be used right now, and refined to be even more efficient in the future. Hell, any gasoline-powered car (well, any recent gasoline-powered car) can be converted to use ethanol with a kit that costs less than 200 dollars, what other "future fuel" technology can claim that?

[Bobboau]

thermal depolemerisation, removes as much polution as it creates, requiers no modification of anything.

[Styxx]

Originally posted by Bobboau
thermal depolemerisation, removes as much polution as it creates, requiers no modification of anything.

With the drawback that it's not possible to do in large quantities right now, and we don't even know if it will be possible in the quantities that are needed. All large scale experiments on it failed.

[aldo_14]

And is it cheaply affordable?

(not to mention the logistical issues of simply collecting the recyleable waste in 3rd world countries)

[Bobboau]

currently the plant has been spitting out 400 barrels of fuel grade oil a day, it's problem right now is that it's turning out to be a bit more expensive to run that thought, becase the suposed waist material they are useing (turkey parts) turned out to be a lot more expencive than they expected (who'd have though turkey waist would cost $20 per barrle). with some work this could easily out produce ethanol 2 to 1. useing a feed stock that has already served a purpose other than makeing fule (ie you could feed people the corn, then use the exrement they produce from it (as well as the packageing it came in) to genorate oil)

[aldo_14]

Point is, how are you going to get this plant up and running for, say, Bangladesh?  Or Sierra Leone?

I'm not saying it's not going to be a useful technology; my point is that it isn't going to be useable for a good while yet in the places that it'll be most needed (developing world); and ethanol, whilst not a perfect solution, is at least available in the short term.

i.e. don't discount what we can do, because of what we might do.

[Flaser]

Originally posted by Bobboau
thermal depolemerisation, removes as much polution as it creates, requiers no modification of anything.

Bobb your in love with a technology mothernature invented a long while ago.

Ethanol is also removes the pollution it creates.
The reason is that the plants are perfect carbon sythesizer - they build themselves out of thin air. All the carbon you burn comes from the air, so the net added CO2 is zero.

Thermal depolemerisation can be a godsend to chemistry, but burning the oil you produce is the worth thing anyone could do with it.
There are myriads of plastics and other oil products that also badly need it as a base material.

Ethanol is lot better to burn as fuel as it is a lot simpler and lighter molecule than average petrol.

[Flipside]

As far as Anti-Grav/Zero Friction is concerned, I don't doubt that it is being researched, but the first benefits of it will, as always, probably be involved with moving heavy weaponary around etc.

As far as the environment is concerned something strikes me here. There seems to be a line between those who complain about no alternative fuels and those who go out and find alternative fuels. I'd love to see all this futuristic tech in my house, making water and food etc etc, but I have to be realistic about it, at the moment it's a lot of theory and extremely expensive equipment. I suppose the question I find me asking myself is... When the hammer falls, who's going to be better off?

We've reached a stage now where the promises are starting to sound a bit hollow, something needs to be seen to be happening, and soon.

[aldo_14]

I think anti-gravity research led to maglev trains, actually.  So they must have done something........