Original Message: ----------------- From: Curtis Burisch [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:10:30 +0200 To: brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: RE: Bio fuels >>which is better for ethanol; sugar cane, corn, switch grass, >>soy or hemp?~)
>A: None of the above, because they all contribute to world hunger. Agreed. It might be pointed out, though, that it took 1/3rd of the US corn crop being devoted to ethanol for the price of food to affect the lives of people worldwide. That gives a decent feel for the sensitivity of the system to rapid changes in demand. >Ethanol >manufactured from atmosphere processing plants powered by solar energy is >the correct answer. What about algae the produce large amounts of complex hydrocarbons per unit of input sunlight, as the syn biology proposal I mentioned would do. Granted, it's a tough job as Charlie pointed out, but the price of equipment for synthetic biology is falling faster than Moore's law....so there is at least a reasonable chance that something like this could work in 5-25 years. Dan M. -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com – Enhanced email for the mobile individual based on Microsoft® Exchange - http://link.mail2web.com/Personal/EnhancedEmail _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
