cookie88:
Point taken. Thanks.
Perhaps I need to be clearer about what it is that I am trying to say. I am not saying the bio diesel is not a great thing. I am not saying that those who are brewing their own fuel are not doing the right thing. In fact, I have demonstrated nothing but respect for anyone who has the capacity to make his or her own bio diesel.
My concern (other than the minor point that "synthetic" does not mean petroleum free) is that bio fuel may not be a solution to our large-scale energy needs. As I have said before, in order to figure out if the conversion of petroleum (and sunlight) into bio fuel and back to a petroleum substitute is more energy efficient (i.e. consumes less petroleum per caloric output of the end product) than simply pouring the petroleum into your fuel tank in the first place, we need to analyze the energy inputs required.
THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO PEOPLE BREWING THEIR OWN BIO FUELS!!!!!!
This is a question for a national fuel supply strategy. Some continue to miss my question so I will restate it.
With bio fuels we have two options.
Option 1: Dump petroleum based fuel into our cars and trucks and drive.
Option 2: A. Dump petroleum based fuel into trucks and tractors, into fertilizers, herbicides & pesticides a grow bio matter. B) Convert that bio matter back into a fuel source for cars and trucks.
No, there is no viable organic alternative to producing the record yields modern agricultural practices currently produce. Yes, under option "B" we could use bio fuels to power those tractors and trucks- but to suggest that the loop will develop more energy than it will consume in creating that fuel means that the energy trapped by the bio mass plant is made up of a substantial ration of solar energy or, you have created energy from nothing.
The question then is how much energy is required to create the biomass necessary to yield a gallon of bio fuel (not the stuff from a bath tub- I mean a commercial quantities)?
I don't think that anyone knows the answer to that question yet. We can guess- We know how many gallons of oil it takes to produce a pound of meat by calculating the bushes of corn required to raise that meat and the gallons/bushel required to grow the corn. In that calculation, it turns out that it would be more energy efficient to feed the corn directly to people than convert that corn to beef and back. Each time you convert energy, you lose something in the conversion. Bio Diesel has similar losses- the question is to what extent the incorporation of solar energy by the plant makes up for those losses.
Anyone know the answer to how much solar energy a plant traps?
-Mike