Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.951116184127.3907A-100000@sirius> Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 19:24:39 +0000 From: Ade Angwafo III <mailto:A.V.Angwafo@HELIOS.HERTS.AC.UK> Subject: Re: Alcohol Fuels To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
On Thu, 16 Nov 1995, William Kovarik wrote: >
> Although we ** should ** shift away from the IC engine, as it is
> an extremely inefficient prime mover, there is no significant trend
> toward natural gas, LP gas or electric power. And as the writer notes,
> these have serious environmental consequences of their own.
> It has always seemed to me that Third and Fourth World production of
> renewable liquid fuel from biomass or surplus crops (like Brazilian
> sugar) is an important key to averting global climate disaster.
It is true that the technology that makes it feasible to use liquid fuel from biomass in the automotive industry (& related areas) has been proven. However, I do not think the percentage yield of alcohol derived from trees is higher than 30% (an estimated efficiency IC engines). Aslo, I'm not exactly sure why you assume that the production of such fuels by the 3 & 4 World (your classification) is an important key to averting global climate disaster.
The production of such fuel seems to me, as is being undertaken in Brazil, to require vast area of fertile land. It also requires a careful and intensive management of the trees, the sugar, the corn and other crops from which this alcohol is derived from. Without such forestry management scheme, you'll simply replace one disaster with another, a case of curing my headache by sending me deep into a coma. Agriculture in this our 3 & 4 worlds is not capital intensive and you therefore need huge chunks of that precious commodity called land. Where is the fertile land?
Personally, I believe that there will be no significant trend away from the consumption of crude oil (petrol, etc) unless the major oil companies (like those shelling-out the ogoniland) push forward the alternatives. What say ya?
peace and respect Ade Hat. of Herts.
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