[Coral-List] Need for more oil
dfenner at blueskynet.as
dfenner at blueskynet.as
Wed May 19 16:13:40 EDT 2010
Apologies to all for not making it clear of what I was talking about when I said
"fossil fuel plant." I meant an industrial installation, so like a coal-fired
electric generation plant, or an oil fired electric generator, etc. Sorry I
didn't make that clear, I didn't even think of the other interpretation!
(a number of green plants (the organisms) produce different types of oils
(none are like crude oil from the ground), such as soybean oil, olive oil, corn
oil, etc. If I remember plant oil in the grease traps of fast food restaurants
are used by some for vehicle fuel. The jojoba desert plant has oil in its nut
that has been suggested for use as a biofuel, but it doesn't seem to have been
developed, and the nut of a desert plant seems unlikely to produce anything but
tiny quantities.) Doug
Quoting GJ <GJ at fishion.eu>:
> Fossil fuel plant.... interesting change of perspective.
> There are no plants that produce oil, gas or coal. So it must be plant from
> which biofuel can be made to replace fossil fuel.
> The question than is to make the plant grow without fossil fuels, right?
> I guess algae are the best candidate if pumps etc are run on electricity from
> wind or solar.
> The difficulty than is the conversion to biodiesel or another form of fuel
> and the transport of this fuel to the consumers.
> How do we make that independent of fossil fuels??
>
> Of course we are addicted to oil, but it really isn't so simple to get hooked
> off. That being so, I really like the JFK quote. And going to the moon is
> easy in comparison.
>
> Best wishes, GJ
>
> --
> Gert Jan Gast
> Koningin Wilhelminakade 227, 1975GL IJmuiden, the Netherlands
> Ph +316 5424 0126, Fax +31255 521546, Skype gjgast
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Douglas Fenner
> Sent: 19 May 2010 10:22
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Need for more oil
>
> I agree, to my knowledge not a single fossil fuel plant in the world manages
>
> to sequester the carbon it produces yet (but maybe there are ones I don't
> know about). One or two that were planned in the US were canceled, I
> believe, maybe due to high costs or technical problems, I don't know.
> As for visual pollution by wind turbines, well I tend to think beauty
> is in the eye of the beholder. I suspect that anyone making a lot of money
> in the oil industry thinks an oil refinery looks beautiful (gas flares
> burning at night, all those lights on towers, kind of romantic way to read
> your profit checks by?). Really, it does change your perspective, those
> that may make profits from windmills won't have much sympathy for those that
>
> want the unspoiled natural beauty. That is, the natural beauty of amber
> waves of grain and green fields of corn, which totally replaced the North
> American prairie, an ecosystem that was totally obliterated by white
> settlers, with only minute scraps of it left in a few places (and a fair bit
>
> on the western edge where it is too dry to farm, so cattle are run on it
> instead of the bison that were killed to starve the Native Americans off the
>
> plains so whites could take the land.) Likely those farms look beautiful to
>
> those who make a good living off them. (By the way, I'm a U.S. citizen, one
>
> who hopes coral reefs won't be obliterated like the prairies were.)
> As for space for solar, there is vastly more space in the US southwest
>
> deserts for solar instalations than ever will be needed. And in Germany
> farmers have solar collectors all over their fields, and make money off the
> cows feeding underneath them on the grass as well as the solar. You can do
> both easily. There is plenty of room. More of a problem is that the desert
>
> southwest is too far from the populous US east coast markets, and most of
> the energy would be lost in the electric lines. But for Phoenix, Arizona, a
>
> low-tech solar electric plant was cheaper and quicker to build than any
> other kind of plant, and provides electricity best during peak demand, on
> hot sunny days when everyone has their air conditioner on. Australia and
> North Africa have enough desert for solar plants to power much of the world,
>
> the problem is not space, it is distance from markets.
> There are great technical hurdles, indeed. But as JFK said "We choose
> to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is difficult." If
> the alternative is to let climate change cause massive damage around the
> world (like when Greenland melts and oceans drown many of the worlds largest
>
> cities which are on coasts, or we have to put dikes around them all and huge
>
> pumps like New Orleans and hope Hurricane Katrina doesn't hit. Estimates of
>
> when Greenland will melt vary widely, I believe, and it's likely to be
> hundreds of years or more.), should we be looking for excuses to not solve
> the problems, or for ways to solve the problems???
> Doug
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Quenton Dokken" <qdokken at gulfmex.org>
> To: "'Eugene Shinn'" <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>;
> <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 8:20 AM
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Need for more oil
>
>
> > Strong commentary Gene. We must also deal with the issue of visual
> > pollution by wind turbines and space allocations for solar. We seem to be
> > caught between a rock and a hard place.
> >
> > Quenton
> >
> > Quenton Dokken, Ph.D.
> > Executive Director
> > Gulf of Mexico Foundation, Inc.
> > PMB 51 5403 Everhart Rd.
> > Corpus Christi, TX 78411
> >
> > Office: 3833 South Staples Suite S214
> > Corpus Christi, TX 78411
> >
> > 361-882-3939 o
> > 361-882-1262 f
> > 361-442-6064 c
> >
> > www.gulfmex.org
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Eugene Shinn
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 11:01 AM
> > To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > Subject: [Coral-List] Need for more oil
> >
> >>Dear Listers who wish to end oil use. An interesting article was
> >>published recently in the NYTimes titled "A Bad Bet On Carbon." The
> >>article lists a number of problems with Co2 sequestration but the
> >>significant one had to do with scale. Here is the direct quote.
> >>"The third, and most vexing, problem has to do with scale. In 2009,
> >>carbon dioxide emissions in the United States totaled 5.4 billion
> >>tons. Lets assume that policymakers want to use carbon capture to
> >>get rid of half of those emissions---say 3 billion tons per year.
> >>That works out to about 8.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per day,
> >>which would have to be collected and compressed to about 1,000 psi
> >>(that compressed volume of carbon dioxide would be roughly
> >>equivalent to the volume of daily global oil production).
> >> In other words, we would need to find an underground location (or
> >>locations) able to swallow a volume equal to the contents of 41 oil
> >>supertankers each day, 365 days a year."
> >> The rest of the article is about the 23,000 miles of new
> >>pipeline needed and the social problems with property rights and the
> >>25% reduced output of power plants due to carbon capture.
> >
> > Any thinking person can see this is a near impossible task in the
> > near term even if the figure is cut in half. Many look to France for
> > Co2 reduction where its no secret that they do it using nuclear
> > energy and reprocess the waste. They even export some electricity to
> > other European nations. If you believe Co2 is a real problem for
> > corals and want to reduce oil use we should do what the French did.
> > That way we can remain productive and not depend on foreign sources
> > of goods such as the computers on which we write these messages. Gene
> >
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >>Gene
> >
> > --
> >
> >
> > No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
> > ------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
> > E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
> > University of South Florida
> > Marine Science Center (room 204)
> > 140 Seventh Avenue South
> > St. Petersburg, FL 33701
> > <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
> > Tel 727 553-1158----------------------------------
> > -----------------------------------
> > _______________________________________________
>
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