Are you for real? Is smog CO2? CO2 is an odorless, colorless gas that exists all over the earth in a concentration of about 377 parts per million.
My apologies. I thought I was arguing with someone who had a basic understanding of atmospherics.
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Not really, for the most part--hybrid wheat, corn, soybeans all are essentially the same size plants as always. What crops specifically are you thinking of?
Plus, most hybrids are grown in much higher "plants/acre" than were their predecessors--both narrower row spacing as well as plant spacing in order to produce higher net yields... .....
The other answer in part to SixPack's question is simply convenience--it's far easier to handle the grain than the rest of the plant....
What evidence for that is there?
I'm sorry you are having problems reading. I never said it would reduce atmospheric carbon, I said there would be no net gain. Neutral does not mean subtraction or addition. Burning fossil fuels is addition.
I'm burning the oil, not the actual kernels. Corn can produce biodiesel, ethanol, and animal feed all from the same bushel.
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All green plants get all their carbon from the air in a process called photosynthesis.
This means that all biofuels are carbon neutral by definition. It's an indisputable fact, a truism. It's so obvious that people don't have to keep proving it every time the use the term.
Anthony
If it's cropland, it's growing crops. That takes some amount of carbon out of the air. It is yet to be shown that converting cropland (or non-crop greenspace) to fuel-corn increases the amount of carbon sucked out of the air by exactly the amount of carbon pumped INTO the air by burning the fuel-part, and that's what you have to show for it to be "carbon-nuetral" by one definition. (by another definition, you'd have to show only that burning the corn-oil releases the same amont of carbon that the plant concentrated in the first place. Obviously this can be true only if you use the entire plant for fuel. Which we don't, and probably won't) By neither definition is there any particular reason to believe that bio-fuel is actually carbon nuetral.
But carbon nuetrality isn't what we care about, anyway. A simplified model is that we burn a certain amount of carbon-fuel, adding that much carbon to the atmosphere (F) If that fuel comed from corn-oil (or whatever) then we have a certain amount of land growing corn, which will suck a certain amount or carbon OUT of the air. Call that (C). If, on the other hand, we get our fuel from dead dinosaurs, then the land that WOULD be growing corn will instead grow something else, and that something else will suck a different amount of carbon out of the air. Call that (D)
The question that MATTERS is whether C > D.
My suspicion is that we'dd end up with less carbon in the air if we go ahead and keep burning dead dinosaurs, and use the cropland to produce things that permanantly remove carbon, like CAF panels, construction-lumber, and pencil-leads.
I'm not sure that that matters. The ratio of the useful part of the plant to the non-useful part goes up. Which part has more carbon in it? probably the part that makes good fuel. It's quite possible (even likely) that the new varieties actually INCREASE the carbon-per-acre.
Your conclusion does not follow from your postulates. This doesn't mean that your conclusion is wrong, but it does mean that your argument is.
--goedjn
I'd extend that to say corn is never grown solely for its oil, but corn oil is a significant product--where would MickeyD be w/o it, for example? :)
Q. What can be extracted from a bushel of corn? A. The wet milling process yields approximately 31.5 pounds of starch, which can be further processed into 33 pounds of sweetener or 2.5 gallons of ethanol. In addition, 13.5 pounds of corn gluten feed, 2.5 pounds of corn gluten meal and 1.6 pounds of corn oil can be extracted.
The extractable oil is in the germ and that seems a little high to me, but in the ballpark, certainly.
Other crops are far better for this, such as oilseeds like canola,
At present, production costs for corn ethanol are lower than the going price for gasoline and one would only expect that to continue to favor alternate fuel sources in the long-range future. Last I saw was something around $1.20-$1.30 for the raw material. Processing costs were on the order of $0.30 iirc, so net delivered cost is something in the near $2/gal range--significantly less than $3 gasoline. I know processing costs have escalated some owing to higher energy costs, but don't have any new data to know the overall impact.
Some area stations had E85 at nearly a full $1 less than regular unleaded...
While I expect there to be a significant drop in oil prices to near pre-Katrina prices and probably approaching $40/bbl again for a short time in a year or so, the
Any citations for any of the above?
I find references to using techniques developed for terrestrial oil exploration Mars as part of the search for evidence of life on Mars, but absolutely no indication of any oil being discovered on Mars.
Aaah! A little searching uncovers much--including the following little tidbit of info. While there's a lot of links to others they're all pretty far-fetched at best.
No Free Lunch, Part 2: If abiotic oil exists, where is it?, by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
© Copyright 2005, From The Wilderness Publications,One of the most notable efforts to prove the existence of abiotic hydrocarbons was undertaken by the Swedes at the urging of Thomas Gold. ....
From 1986 to 1992, two commercial wells were drilled in the Siljan crater, at a reported cost of over $60 million.2 Only 80 barrels of oily sludge were taken from the field. While Dr. Gold claimed this oil to have an abiotic origin, others have pointed out that the early drilling used injected oil as a lubricant, and that this is the likely origin of the oily sludge.3 It has also been mentioned that sedimentary rocks 20 kilometers away could have been the source of hydrocarbon seepage.4 Others have observed that during World War II, the Swedish blasted into the bedrock to produce caverns in order to stockpile petroleum supplies. ....
Even if we grant that these hydrocarbons are abiogenic (though it is a highly dubious claim), this exploration could only be termed a success in the most attenuated sense of the word. These 80 barrels of oily sludge cost investors three quarters of a million dollars per barrel. And if they had gone to the trouble of extracting the oil from the sludge and refining it, they would have had even less oil, and their expenses would have increased by the cost of extraction and refining.
Which radioactive decay process is that? As a NucE, it's one I've not come across previously...
You do realize corn oil is available it the grocery store .....
Corn is a good crop because it's commonly grown, it can be pressed for oil, and mashed for ethanol, plus the distillers grains are used for animal feed, so it has many by products.
Or find a plant or environment that's particularly good at sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. Crank the global temp a degree or so, And I'll bet you get algae blooms like you never saw... that ought to do it...
You really are a nutcase, aren't you?
You're confusing "hydrocarbon" and "Helium", I think.
>Semantics but "carbon does not burn"
That may be true in theory, but in practice, the CO2 levels in our atmosphere will continue to rise. An equilibrium used to exist, before our industrial revolution, where the amount of carbon released by biotic respiration and natural fires, was roughly equal to the rate at which the earth was able to re-absorb that carbon.
Nowadays we burn carbon in nearly every home and in factories, powerplants and transportation vehicles. This orgy of burning carbon is the reason the atmospheric rate of CO2 is rising, not because of the TYPE of carbon fuel we are burning.
"Carbon-neutral" sounds fine, but it's ridiculous to think that atmospheric CO2 will stop rising just because we switch from fossil-carbon fuel to biofuel-carbon fuel. The only way to stop that is to stop burning carbon-based fuels altogether.
so, carbon monoxide (CO) doesn't burn?
I see where you are having difficulty. I am saying that as long as emissions exceed assimilation, atmospheric CO2 will continue to rise. If you are saying that if we start growing a lot of crops for biofuels, that trend will stop, I have to respectfully disagree. The globe is already covered with vegetation, and the oceans are full of blue-green algae, so anything we can do by way of increasing crop growth will not be enough to halt, or even slow significantly the rise of CO2 in our atmosphere.
If you are willing to debate me on this point, I'm quite willing to listen.
Corn is rarely grown for it's oil. A typical kernel of corn has 7-7.5% oil content. Other crops are far better for this, such as oilseeds like canola, which has 40-50% oil content. The remainder of the seed is a high-quality animal feed. Where optimal conditions exist, canola can produce 500Kg of oil per acre, or 17,000 gallons of crude canola oil per square mile. The vast majority of available acres are far from optimal, so a much lower yield figure is reasonable.
Using a realistic yield of 10,000 gallons per sq mile, the economics are still a long way from feasible, compared to other fuel options. The production costs alone for a square mile of canola is approximately $25,000 US. Add to this, estimated processing and distribution costs of another $25,000, and the net consumer price for a typical gallon of biofuel canola oil is likely to exceed $7 US. I'd say we have to experience a lot more petroleum price increases for this to be a feasible alternative.
That may be true in theory, but in practice, the CO2 levels in our atmosphere will continue to rise. An equilibrium used to exist, before our industrial revolution, where the amount of carbon released by biotic respiration and natural fires, was roughly equal to the rate at which the earth was able to re-absorb that carbon.
Nowadays we burn carbon in nearly every home and in factories, powerplants and transportation vehicles. This orgy of burning carbon is the reason the atmospheric rate of CO2 is rising, not because of the TYPE of carbon fuel we are burning.
"Carbon-neutral" sounds fine, but it's ridiculous to think that atmospheric CO2 will stop rising just because we switch from fossil-carbon fuel to biofuel-carbon fuel. The only way to stop that is to stop burning carbon-based fuels altogether.
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