Living in the middle of an ocean of corn and soybeans, I see the
other side of this too. Alcohol production for fuel additive is
big business here, and soy-diesal production is starting to hit
it's stride.
However, the net gain (considering all aspects of production) is
marginal at best. But consider the fact that corn/bean sales
for food consumption is even less.
The big "new" technology is biomass. Take all of the garbage
from farm production, refuse, etc., and pump it into this
cooker. Out comes all sorts of good things to fuel vehicles
with and a nice sludge that goes to the dump to poison the earth
for a few thousand years.
Hydrogen production is also costly. As a portable fuel source
for vehicles, it is very good, but cost of production, storage,
transportation, etc., makes it a marginal fuel for another
decade or so.
Before petroleum we were trashing the world's whale supply. If
managed properly, it could have been a "renewable energy
resource". Don't think my friends in Greenpeace would go for it
though.
You still can't beat solar for most energy usage, though.
I feel good about sticking with film for awhile. The energy
consumption of digital cameras cuts into our electricity supply.
Did you know that sending an email probably consumes about 10
watts throughout the entire communications network?
AG-Schnozz
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