[Jay Pan ROKK]

Originally Posted by 1MuayThai

There is no simple solution. People can tout all the "renewable" resources as they can, and it definitely sounds cute, but physics says there is no simple solution.

1st of energy states you cannot just create energy, you transform it from one form to next. So you've to spend some energy (lets say 1 unit) to create another form of energy in the form of work (theoretically max 1 unit, conservation of mass). But 2nd law states, then you change 1 unit of initial form of energy to secondary form, you will not get 1 unit. Even Carnot Cycle, which is the most efficient theoretically possible heat cycle, cannot get 100% efficiency (unless the outside/non-system temperature is absolute zero). You always loss useful form of energy. So you will be using hydrocarbon (in the form of farm equipments, pumps, compressors, etc) to "get" another form of energy, in process losing some exergy. Even electricity is generated from natural gas, coal, hydropower...and that is not going to be 1 unit of the initial form of energy. No matter how sexy the idea is, if it doesn't follow these fundamental laws of thermodynamics, then it is not valid.

Best solution is the solar radiation, but we do not have the technology to capture the solar energy to transport. The biggest form of "renewable" is the conservation, and nobody emphasizes conserving and optimizing the use of energy, like increasing the mpg, et al.

Plants do get energy from the sun.

[Jay Pan ROKK]

In fact all energy on earth comes ultimately from the sun.

[JerkWeed]

Originally Posted by chriskiss

You're missing a key point. Using the speech: "the only water we lose is what's actually bound up in the algae and goes into the oil itself." Every mixture of hydrocarbon and water contains has an azeotrope. You will run into the same problem everytime. You cannot get the purity required by distillation.

In this regard the difference in producing biodiesel and ethanol is that the biodiesel transesterification process doesn't require nearly as much distillation. For extracting the primary biofuel itself, oil and water are not difficult to separate.

Additionally, many engines will run on straight vegetable oil (during the warm months), just as the original diesel engine did, removing the need for transesterification entirely.

[Jay Pan ROKK]

Bio-diesel is 100% compatible with regular diesel no need to change anything neither on motors nor infrastructure.

Alcohol (ethanol, methanol, butanol, etc) is not 100% compatible with regular gas, few changes should be applied on motors and infrastructure.

[Jay Pan ROKK]

Each part of the plant do either alcohol or bio-diesel, very rarely they do both.

The line is, everything that has sugar do alcohol, everything has oil do bio diesel.

For example, peanuts do bio-diesel but not alcohol, while sugar cane do alcohol but not bio diesel.

[Kiyashin]

We need to figure out this nuclear fusion.

[SilenceKit]

Put every fat person in the US on a treadmill generator for 30 mintues a day, and you could generate enough power to run every electrical grid in the world for 100 years.

[Stringer Bell]

nuclear power

[chriskiss]

Originally Posted by JerkWeed

In this regard the difference in producing biodiesel and ethanol is that the biodiesel transesterification process doesn't require nearly as much distillation. For extracting the primary biofuel itself, oil and water are not difficult to separate.

Additionally, many engines will run on straight vegetable oil (during the warm months), just as the original diesel engine did, removing the need for transesterification entirely.

I appreciate what you're trying to say but let me clarify some things for you. Transesterification is going to be a chemical reaction. That is reactants to products. Distillation is a separation process where the only reactions occurring will be state changes. That is liquid to gas etc. It shows that you don't quite understand the principles.

I didn't address this before because I didn't see a lot of people going down this garden path but I'll do it now. Look at the reactions required for creating biodiesel. They use ethanol or methanol. The previous argument stand in regards to those two fuels/additives.

[chardog]

Originally Posted by SilenceKit

Put every fat person in the US on a treadmill generator for 30 mintues a day, and you could generate enough power to run every electrical grid in the world for 100 years.

We need to make bicycles that would generate energy for our homes. That would be a kick ass invention.