>So, no problem producing the crops for ethanol, SVO or biodiesel, and >the entire operation can easily be powered on biofuels or >by-products. That would include such integrated prodedures as using >the DDG from ethanol production as livestock feed, the livestock >manure producing biogas for process heat, the residue subjected to >aerobic composting for recycling to the soil - with the aerobic >composting a constant and free source of heat for hot water (60 deg >C+), also useful for process heat. Burning glyc (safely) and >recovered FFAs offer further such options. Easy.
Ok, so the use of non-"sustainable" fossil fuels can be eliminated from fertilizer and the like, and with a better integrated system, sustainable biofuels could be used in the machines which are used in the production of the bioproducts used to make biofuels. I think I've always assumed that this was possible, and not that much of an issue (never mind the Cornell Professors of the world), but I must admit that what I do question would be to get a handle, down the road, as to how *much* fuel this whole system could sustain over a very long period of time, in conjunction with healthy sustainable food production. As a matter of degree, the concepts of sustainable healthy agriculture making both food and fuels... how big of an economy can they serve? There are several important concerns here, not least of which is avoiding setting us all up for a bit of starvation. I do not mean to imply that I've calculated that it would lead to that. I mean only that it seems logical to me to give consideration to these matters. Now, you may have given consideration to these matters to the nth degree, publicly and privately, and be weary of it, but anyway: I really honestly do regret lashing out at Todd that way, now that I realize he had something different in mind. But to take an additional lesson from it: he was attempting to express weariness with going over the same topics over and over again. Ok, so that's something you've also alluded to in your own way, say when someone asks you to repeat yourself, where a topic has been covered several times recently or in easily accessible archives. And it is in the nature of these forums of our day that, perhaps since archives can be somewhat laborious, and perhaps also to human-nature-laziness and perhaps just due to the need to continually chew things over, we go over and over certain things, perhaps making some different points each time. What I want to add here is that I was thinking about your Sierra Club observations, and about the enlightening things I've learned recently about the energy efficiency advantages of diesel-engine processes, and I think for better or worse, it is in the nature of these public debates that progress can really depend not only on being right, or partly right, but on going over things again and again until the point connects with enough targets. I've communicated with and dealt with activists who were mature enough to disagree with me about this or that and yet maintain the conversation over the years until we could, by reasoning things out, both decide who might have the better side of it. And I'd bet some work that the Sierra Club folks, or folks similar to them on what is apparently the wrong side of the diesel debate, have not quite gotten what has been said about diesel, and *bio*-diesel. Part of this is I think perhaps due to the subtlety of the argument that one needs put into place engine technologies that inherently can give consumers the power to choose nonfossil fuels for the first time in a century choice (diesel leading to choosing diesel or biodiesel, batteries leading to choosing different derivations of electricity, some hybrids leading to a variety of choices). And part of this is simply that they haven't given much thought at all to Diesel issues. And part of this is that they have some legitimate points to make about the CO2 emissions when taken before the "net" considerations we discussed above. But overall, I think there's some "ripe" room there for them to be somewhat swayed, given a bit more lobbying, just as I have been. This is not to say an expert technician like Todd or whoever need weary himself over-much with going over and over things, since that may not be their bag. But those who are more on the politico-economic side of things will I guess continue to run into this work that needs doing, even if it is understandable that some of them are just sick of it and won't do it. I do think that given a bit more intellectual ammo, Kerry might continue to try to come through, to the best of his abilities. As for Dingle, he does what Detroit, particularly Union Leaders and Auto Industry Lobbyists, tells him to do, in my opinion, without deviation. As for the auto executives, .... now I am the one who is weary.... not from repetitiveness exactly, but when the topic at hand involves analyzing folks whose logic and thinking is particularly complex and mixed and twisted, it can be so hard to go around in their circles, try to see their various points of view, analyze their behaviour collectively and individually, etc. I know, a corporation is not an indivdual human being. I deal with both, (not a paid job.... just the windmill I've chosen to hang around and shake my fist at), and they're both a handfull. I don't know if there's a "conspiracy" to keep some of the better technologies off the roads. I entertain different hypotheses to explain the behaviours I observe, and I guess the conspiracy-of-collective-contradictory-stupidity hypothesis probably helps me explain more than the "smoking-man bad-guy" idea of some guy or guys sitting around deliberatley laughingly keeping some technologies off the market. But maybe not. I don't know. I think the reasons that what are arguably the best technologies don't reach the marketplace are in some ways complex, and I'll leave it at that for now. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Home Selling? 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