LOL Environmentally friendly killing machines

Having worked with the Dutch Air Force there was little surprise when I saw an article in Rotor Hub about their AH-64 Apache helicopter that runs of bio-fuels.

My first though was only the Dutch could do this and secondly what irony there was in having an out an out killing machine that is environmentally friendly.

Whatever next solar powered cruise missiles?

http://www.planetalkinglive.com/201...otorcraft-to-fly-on-sustainable-bio-kerosene/

 

not a bad idea actually

 

Biofuels are the most horrible thing in the world. A waste of crops.

 

Yep only snag.

"I am sorry Mr President we can't launch a counter strike, there is a bit of cloud cover at the moment."


There is an Exxon Mobile add on at the moment where some bearded Prof. is talking about making it from algae.
But yes it seems strange that they are giving over land to bio-fuel crops which is pushing up the price of food crops.

 

Only if you're stupid enough to use food as source for them

 

I think bio-fuels can be made out of the parts we don't eat like corn husk. It has something to do with cellulose...or something....IDK

 

Yep, generation 1 was purely made from actual food, but generation 2 biofuels can be made from anything containing cellulose.

 

Good, I finally got something right.

 

Which would need to be done for it to be done mass scale. 3.5 Million tonnes of crop to supply a small amount of Britain or something like that.

 

There are millions of tons of waste cellulose-containing waste being produced each year, including waste from food-industry, grass clippings and other 'waste' from maintaining parks and similar areas. The amount of food we produce is dwarfed by these waste products which we usually just leave to rot.

The only reason why cellulose wasn't used before is because it's harder to break it down and make fuel out of it, but we got this pretty much under control now and ready for commercial application. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than using food sources as well, once you cut out the huge subsidies (like in the US for corn).

 

It's not ethical though is it? One SUV filled with Biofuel could feed someone for a year. The main sources for biofuel in the UK would come from crops, crops which are usually exported to other countries for food. It just seems so stupid the fact that the food is being used to fuel cars. And never get on the fact the amount of oil that is needed to create the biofuels in the form of fertiliser, farm machinery etc

 

You're not reading Elledan's post. Biofuels are nowadays made from the bits that we can't eat; the seed husks, the peel, the inedible leaves and stems that we currently throw away and leave to rot --or if we're environmentally conscious, compost. So you can eat your crop and convert the remaining waste to fuel.

Moreover the waste product of biofuel processing can still be composted to feed the next crops or used as building material. The biofuel can be used to power machinery to grow more food crops --the food waste of which can be converted to fuel. Rinse, repeat.

The unethical thing about SUVs is that the cost of building one could probably feed a whole village. War is not only a messy business, it is also a wasteful one.

 

Unless you live in the US where biofuels are made of corn.

 

This. If you're living in the UK, you use wheat mainly (3.5 Million tonnes of the stuff). If you use biofuel from Brazil, mostly sugar cane, then you are destroying mass areas of land (Usually rainforest) to create the sugarcane for biofuels. Or there's Palm oil which are destroying mass area's of rainforest in Asia to produce.

And seeming the fact that 1/3 of all greenhouse gases come from destruction of rainforests and ecosystems, it's not exactly environmentally friendly in the bigger picture.

Corn prices in Mexico have grown 70%, and this has made it less available for the people as food, all just because they want to use it as fuel.

Biofuel in the UK will use 1/5 off all our (UKs) wheat supply when the 3 refineries are up and running.

 

So basically we're going to end up paying 20% more... including the vat increase >.< Excellent -_- not.

Never really understood why we can't artificially produce enviroments to grow said crops... oh wait, money -_-

Bring on the facepalm.

 

Biofuels technology will advance so that it does not use food crops. As I said earlier thay are looking at algae, which, as anyone with a fish tank knows, grows only too readily, is not a food crop and does not require deforestation.

 

And if Algae is needed it could destroy whole ecosystems under water for it to be needed to be produced on a mass scale. Look at the Norfolk Broads. Algae had destroyed a whole ecosystem, due to the fact no sunlight could reach underwater, which led to birds leaving through lack of food, until the only think left growing in the broads was the Algae. That's when Biomanipulation was brought in to kill off the Algae and that eventually brought an ecosystem back to life. And they will need a mass amount of land to produce enough Algae for the Biofuels, so in turn it will just destroy more land to produce it.

 

Algae for biofuel would be grown in bioreactors, ideally in sunny places like deserts. You would have known this if you had done 2 seconds of research.

Seriously, what is your issue?

 

My issue? Sorry, you can't take a reasoned debate? I don't like Biofuels. It's bad for the environment, and is destroying the land we live on in a way to make us imagine we're doing our bit. The whole reason for Biofuels being pushed now are due to the Kyoto agreement, so countries in Asia and South America can mess up the environment there to give us Biofuels, just so we can reach our quota on Biofuels, as the emissions made are destroying the earth from mass deforestation.

Biofuels, in most cases are an Environmental disaster, and in the case of LEDC countries they're leading their way to be a huge social disaster. In 15 year's up to 98% of the rainforest in some Asian countries could be destroyed if biofuels carry on the rate it does.

But, yeah, if you can't take a debate, then really, you just need to grow up or get out of the debate.

And Algae production will not be economically viable for a long time, when cheaper Biofuels can be easily produced ignorantly.

And less forget that Algae grows in Fresh Water, a resource that isn't in huge amounts enough to grow mass Algae, and the transport of all that Fresh Water. Biofuels, simply are not the answer.

 

Pieface;
You're being unreasonable, if biofuels are quite clearly *not* the answer, then what is? Are you going to argue how envrionmentally benefitting dinojuice oil is?

Coming back to real life, we have a problem, we need to solve it. Biofuels are a step along the way. It's all well and good moaning about the cons, but try to think about the pros aswell, there are 2 sides to every arguement.

That said, I admit I'm a bit biased, in that I run my car off pure WASTE oil from the restaurant / pub next to my house. This is used cooking oil they are throwing away, that'd normally be taken to one of the biodiesel plants. If all the used oil were to be collected, that's a significant amount of fuel available, and that's just the food waste - as said several times ^^^ there's a huge amount of food/energy wasted compared to what we actually use. Something like 50% of the available oil is extracted from crops to make cooking oil, the rest is unable to be extracted.