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Upsetting the applecart #1 - carbon neutral biofuel
thermidorthelobster:
Here's one such article.
And this one suggests a figure of only 18-28% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by using corn ethanol.
clbarclay:
Ethanol being worse doesn't surprise me as it has to be heated for production compared to using an SVO.
I take it its out of the question just to use less energy?
clbarclay:
--- Quote from: "mark.yellow.series.3" ---another carbon plus point for the series, is the avarage car has a life span of 8-10 years
--- End quote ---
An interesting point, but is that due to failure of the car or just a lack of demand for 10+ year old cars being the reason for most of them being scraped? After all what % of the population would want an old car if they can so easily have a newer model.
thermidorthelobster:
--- Quote from: "clbarclay" ---I take it its out of the question just to use less energy?
--- End quote ---
Oddly enough it's apparently not as simple as that. There's an argument that the economics of the situation are that if you save money by reducing energy expenditure, you tend to spend the money you saved on other things, for example luxury products, that consume energy in their manufacture. It's an odd argument and I'm not sure I agree... but it appears it's not as straightforward as it seems at first glance.
In other words, if I saved money by buying a nice little energy-efficient car, I'd probably spend the money I saved every year on a bigger telly, or a holiday abroad, etc etc, and use energy in ever more devious and abstract ways.
thermidorthelobster:
Another vaguely interesting point: somebody published the area of crop you needed to grow to get x amount of biofuel. I can't remember the exact figures, but I worked out that if I wanted to plant my own crops to run the Disco on biofuel, at 25,000 miles a year I'd need 20 acres of a good efficient biofuel crop, assuming 1 crop per year (ie in UK). That doesn't factor in the amount extra I'd need to grow to support the energy I'd need to grow the crop in the first place, etc etc.
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