[Greenbuilding] bio fuels and ethanol

[Rob Tom]

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:39:14 -0400, Tim Vireo Keating  
<t.keating at rainforestrelief.org> wrote:

>> --- Ross MacLeod <drossmacleod at gmail.com> wrote:

>>>  So, while ethanol
>>>  from corn doesn't make sense, switch grass in
>>>  addition to energy from waste
>>>  most likely does.

Speaking from the idiocy corner here, about energy from waste...

Here in Ottawa there is a highly visible landfill mountain that many  
people sneeringly refer to as "Mount Trashmore" (as if they had no role in  
its creation) and whose operators had applied for a permit to increase its  
capacity.

The primary objectors to the application are people who bought homes in  
new subdivisions that were created near the pre-existing landfill  
operation. I see it as akin to the situation of people buying properties  
in the country and then complaining about the noise,dust and smells from  
the adjacent farms.

As far as landfills go, I think that it is a wonderful operation in that  
they have implemented a number of enviro-friendly innovations and its  
highly visible location (almost immediately across the main cross-town  
traffic artery from the NHL hockey arena) is a useful reminder as to how  
much waste the community generates. I don't have a problem with it's  
continued operation or expansion.

Many of the anti-dump expansion crowd want to see an energy-from-waste  
facility created instead.

To that end, a home-grown company is going to build a plasma gasification  
pilot project

     http://www.plascoenergygroup.com

which is supposedly an improvement over waste incinerators but as yet,  
I've not been able to find any figures on the net energy equation (yes I  
have contacted the company).

As you may have gathered, I'm not convinced that energy-from-waste is a  
good solution or even that it's a better solution than landfills. I see  
landfills as low-energy re-source-itariums to temporarily store materials  
that can be "mined" at a later date.

And although I will confess that I've been feeding my vehicles  
corn-derived fuel for the past decade-and-a-half ( but I have driven less  
than 6,000 kms per year over that time), I agree that it makes little  
sense to take food crops like corn and soybeans to make petro-fuel  
substitutes, from an energy-in-energy-out perspective since IIRC it takes  
something like 3 units of energy (usually petro-derived) to produce one  
unit of corn or soy derived energy.

The bio-fuels that make sense to me are those that are fed to bi-peds so  
that they may pedal or peramubulate to wherever it is they think they need  
to go.

-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
<A r c h i L o g i c   at  c h a f f y a h o o   dot   c a >
winnow the chaff from my edress in your reply