Minnesota passes Biodiesel law!!

[cavalierlwt Profile]

Actually, or I should say supposedly, the issue is the Kyoto treaty doesn't include China and India, who are set to expand so much that any gains made from Kyoto will be more than offset by increased in pollution from China and India.
That's the biggest thing I've heard. I say include China and India and maybe we'll all get on board.

[Rotoman Profile YIM]

Minnesota has sold biodiesel for YEARS...as have many of the upper midwest states. You've always been able to buy it at almost any gas station. Still, its a nice step forward.

Here's more on biodiesel.

http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,68969,00.html

[CodeRed68 Profile]

also, the larger percentage of americans live with more luxuries than some citizens other, 2nd or 3rd world countries. Hence we use more resources such as electricty, gas heating, etc. Areas in China or India for example, they have a large portion of the population without electricity.

[PraiseA||ah Profile]

Originally posted by CodeRed68
also, the larger percentage of americans live with more luxuries than some citizens other, 2nd or 3rd world countries. Hence we use more resources such as electricty, gas heating, etc. Areas in China or India for example, they have a large portion of the population without electricity.

....and your point is....?

[girl]

I'd rather see workers keep their jobs and feed their families than a few species of fish live because of them losing their jobs.

(Not so well-put lol)

[CodeRed68 Profile]

Originally posted by PraiseA||ah
....and your point is....?

the kyoto protocall unfairly regulates the U.S. while not affecting India, China and other countries. Allowing them to increase thier emissions.
The US has an unprecedented standard of living for a larger percentage of it's populace than any country in history. So my point is.. That the US is going to have the largest emissions in the world by the very nature of it's lifestyle.

[PraiseA||ah Profile]

Jobs come and go.. the environment is rather important to our survival as a species. We are at the top of a very fragile and interconnected pyramid. Kick out the base and ultimately and eventually we will fall too. Everything is connected and we don't know most of the species' interdependencies.

I don't see this argument as political, I see it as scientific. Global warming is a fact. It is happening and it's politics that get in the way to obscure the facts. It's not until we are too late to stop the momentum of a drastic change in the atmospheric environment will anything be done, is my and other people's fear.

[PraiseA||ah Profile]

Originally posted by CodeRed68
the kyoto protocall unfairly regulates the U.S. while not affecting India, China and other countries. Allowing them to increase thier emissions.
The US has an unprecedented standard of living for a larger percentage of it's populace than any country in history. So my point is.. That the US is going to have the largest emissions in the world by the very nature of it's lifestyle.

LOL.. Uh.. yes. I agree except with the unfair part. But saying that someone eats more and then saying they can eat more because they do eat more is rather circular logic don't you think?

This is a very complicated subject... I admit I don't have most of the answers but I don't think it's fair for the largest polluter in the world, the US, to not stand up and reduce it's emissions. It is also rather um... hypocritical to be that polluter with our history of pollution, to tell other countries how badly they are polluting when we have yet to address ours in this meaningful way. Much of the concern over the developing countries is about future and not necessarilly current. Definitely a concern but I would like us to start now, tackle current issues and then move onto tackling future ones.

[CodeRed68 Profile]

on that note and back on topic.. i think what Minnesota is doing is totally great. I think more states should follow thier lead. I think this biodiesel technology is something really good.

[PraiseA||ah Profile]

Yes, I agree, a definite step in the right direction.

[girl]

Originally posted by Alofwar
This guy in Kent (an english county, like a state) has discovered this crop which produces an oil which u can run your car on just as efficently, with no poisonous emissions, what makes it better is that it will cost 85p a litre (you do the exchange into $) thats 15p cheaper then petrol now, its pricewill be more stable, and you dont have to modify your car at all to run on it, its win win win.

Link?

[cavalierlwt Profile]

If it's not a dead horse, I think I'll beat it a little more. The thing with India and China is they currently don't pollute too much, but they are about to go through a MASSIVE industrialization period, and without putting some measures in place before they do this, they will wind up putting out something like 5 times more pollution than the Western world plans to reduce via the Kyoto treaty. In other words, if we don't include India and China, the Western world will reduce emissions, but those two countries alone will give us a major net increase in pollution. If that happens, the Kyoto treaty is all for nothing. Better to get China and India on the right track (it's cheapest and easiest if you do it from the start) at the same time we get our house in order. I think Biodiesel is a great first step and a great solution to carry us until we have some higher tech breakthrough with hydrogen or something similar. The problems with Biodiesel are probably pretty easy to solve compared to the major breakthrough needed on the other technologies. Start out with B20 and work out way toward B100. It's such an easy changeover for the auto industry too. Go from just biodiesel to biodiesel hybrid, kind of like a Prius. Not only will the evironment benefit, but the economic benefits on the national level will be amazing. Steady, uninterrupted supply of fuel, not threatened by war or politics, would allow our economy to go like a bat out of hell. Uncertainty is as crippling to an economy as war or hurricanes.

[A.M. Foxtrot Profile]

Originally posted by cavalierlwt
Kudos to Minnesota for taking a major step toward the future:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050928/sc_afp/usenergyoilgas_050928134802

They're requiring that all diesel sold be at least partly made of biodiesel.
I'm impressed as hell, any Minnesotoans should be proud as hell right now. That's leadership, that's taking some initiative!

Back to the original topic here. Kudos to Minnesota for implementing this. I've been a big proponent of the use of Bio-diesel for quite some time now. It's cleaner burning (healthier for the environment) it helps clean and lubricate your engine (healthier for your engine) Especially since in 2007 the EPA is requiring ULSD (Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel...sulphur being the ingredient that helps to lubricate the engine.) right now I'd have to travel to Austin to get it...Makes no financial sense to get it, but I hope biodiesel picks up some momentum so it becomes available to more consumers in the near future. I could go into politics about this...But that's not what the thread is about.

edit: for spelling

[LordShard]

I like how the government gives money to the oil monopoly to design a few feul sorce which doesn't fulfill any needs and wil not be able to be used for many many many YEARS.
Copyright © 2005 POPULAR SCIENCE
True, hydrogen is the most common element in the universe; it's so plentiful that the sun consumes 600 million tons of it every second. But unlike oil, vast reservoirs of hydrogen don't exist here on Earth. Instead, hydrogen atoms are bound up in molecules with other elements, and we must expend energy to extract the hydrogen so it can be used in fuel cells. We'll never get more energy out of hydrogen than we put into it.

Unlike internal combustion engines, hydrogen fuel cells do not emit carbon dioxide. But extracting hydrogen from natural gas, today's primary source, does. And wresting hydrogen from water through electrolysis takes tremendous amounts of energy. If that energy comes from power plants burning fossil fuels, the end product may be clean hydrogen, but the process used to obtain it is still dirty.

Perform electrolysis with renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, and you eliminate the pollution issues associated with fossil fuels and nuclear power. Trouble is, renewable sources can provide only a small fraction of the energy that will be required for a full-fledged hydrogen economy.

Hydrogen gas is odorless and colorless, and it burns almost invisibly. A tiny fire may go undetected at a leaky fuel pump until your pant leg goes up in flames. And it doesn't take much to set compressed hydrogen gas alight. "A cellphone or a lightning storm puts out enough static discharge to ignite hydrogen," claims Joseph Romm, author of The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate and founder of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions in Arlington, Virginia.

"An economically sane, cost-effective attack on the climate problem wouldn't start with cars," David Keith says. Cars and light trucks contribute roughly 20 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted in the U.S., while power plants burning fossil fuels are responsible for more than 40 percent of CO2 emissions. Fuel cells designed for vehicles must cope with harsh conditions and severe limitations on size and weight

Consider this: President George W. Bush promised to spend $1.2 billion on hydrogen. Yet he allotted $1.5 billion to promote "healthy marriages." The monthly tab for the war in Iraq is $3.9 billion--a total of $121 billion through last September. In 2004 the Department of Energy spent more on nuclear and fossil fuel research than on hydrogen.

Simply mass-producing fuel cell cars won't necessarily slash costs. According to Patrick Davis, the former leader of the Department of Energy's fuel cell research team, "If you project today's fuel cell technologies into high-volume production--about 500,000 vehicles a year--the cost is still up to six times too high."

A gallon of gasoline contains about 2,600 times the energy of a gallon of hydrogen. If engineers want hydrogen cars to travel at least 300 miles between fill-ups--the automotive-industry benchmark--they'll have to compress hydrogen gas to extremely high pressures: up to 10,000 pounds per square inch. Even at that pressure, cars would need huge fuel tanks. "High-pressure hydrogen would take up four times the volume of gasoline," says JoAnn Milliken, chief engineer of the Department of Energy's Office of Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Infrastructure Technologies.

The near-future prospects for a hydrogen economy are dim, concludes The Hydrogen Economy: Opportunities, Costs, Barriers, and R&D Needs, a major government-sponsored study published last February by the National Research Council. Representatives from ExxonMobil, Ford, DuPont, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other stakeholders contributed to the report, which urges lawmakers to legislate tougher tailpipe-emission standards and to earmark additional R&D funding for renewable energy and alternative fuels. It foresees "major hurdles on the path to achieving the vision of the hydrogen economy" and recommends that the Department of Energy "keep a balanced portfolio of R&D efforts and continue to explore supply-and-demand alternatives that do not depend on hydrogen."

[slog Profile]

Biodiesel isn't even remotely viable as an alternative fuel. This is just a giveaway to farming special interests.