gas prices

[Thomas Kirby]

Flyboy, what makes it even more frustrating is that it can still be wonderful beyond belief.

[CPL.Luke]

solar for electric is alot more efficient. It would cost more to have everyone growing and eating their own food then it would to grow it all in a centralised place and sell it.

 

growing more hemp won't decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, with the amount of land already covered by green plants, it doesn't make to much of a difference to bulldoze a section of green plants just to grow more green plants in the same area.

 

Even if we had colonies on the moon they would just be drains on the economy and wouldn't be of any use. We need to wait for there to be an economical reason to have a moon base.

 

I heart hydrogen.

 

oil is dying, let it. and where do you get your numbers for fuel efficiency from. Free market usually rules, if we dont have them now we shouldn't have had them then etc. The only time things get messy is when the government interferes

 

and if you want to grow oil so much, start a company that produces the oil from hemp, or soy, or whatever. If its really as good as you say, you should be able to make money at it.

 

sorry for the bullet notes, Its way to late here to form concice paragraphs.

 

and, grokking the fullness is always a good idea kirby

[Pangloss]

we don't have that many sources of oil anymore

 

Says who? I don't follow your reasoning here. Did an oil well dry up somewhere?

 

Did you mean to say that we don't have any *new* sources of oil to meet the new/increased level of demand? That seems to be the case, more or less.

 

 

And hemp can produce anywhere from 25 barrels of oil per acre on up.

 

Now that's interesting, I had not heard that one before. Is there a cost figure for the energy used to produce that hemp, by any chance? I've read that that's a problem with corn-derived fuel.

[CPL.Luke]

I meant that alot of the US wells have since dried up, alot of the oil wells in the texas/nebraska area have gone dry.

 

I meant more US sources of oil

[Thomas Kirby]

Cpl. Luke: Hemp produces a tremendous amount of biomass on an acre. It does not require nearly as much care to grow as corn does. You don't have to put nitrogen in the soil, for one thing. Even if hemp plants weren't larger than corn plants, and tremendously larger than soybean plants, producing fuel using hemp takes carbon out of the air instead of putting carbon into the air the way fossil fuels do.

 

The problem with corn-derived fuel is that it takes a lot of processing to convert it into mash, ferment it, and distill it. With hemp all that needs to be done is to press the seeds. This can be done by hand. If it had to be, the press could be made completely of wood, but it can be built with a few parts from a hardware store. Legal hemp would give any backwoods engineer the ability to go into his back forty, gather a few sacks of seed, and press enough fuel to run his car for a week without using electricity, expensive technology, fermentation, or distillation. The same fuel could also produce all of his energy needs from a few acres, heating and electricity. I personally would recommend the use of an optimized steam engine. Get the most out of the fuel with the least pollution.

 

Biodiesel Site

 

These facts have been known for a very long time. Diesel engines were actually invented to run on vegetable oils and I think that petroleum is a poor substitute. Also, the stalks contain a huge amount of cellulose that can be processed into fuel. Cellulose is a polymer of starch that can be broken down and fermented to make alcohol, and there are other ways to make it into fuel.

 

It's not just the solution to pollution. We need to have our independence, and what twist of the human mind made us even want to give it over to Arabian warlords anyway? Sure, they can participate in the 20th and 21st century as far as I am concerned, but one, actually be 21st century, and two, they don't get to mess with US. We make them filthy rich, so filthy rich that they can buy and sell billionaires, and they bomb Israel and knock over our skyscrapers. They also treat their people like dirt.

[Douglas]

I guess that kind of shot down my game plan

Not really, you can always wear a gas mask.

[Douglas]

i have a horse that i could ride places... lol.

but i don't think that people would appreciate it when she took a dump on their lawn or driveway.

Bring along a pooper scooper and a baggie.

[CPL.Luke]

It's not just the solution to pollution. We need to have our independence, and what twist of the human mind made us even want to give it over to Arabian warlords anyway? Sure, they can participate in the 20th and 21st century as far as I am concerned, but one, actually be 21st century, and two, they don't get to mess with US. We make them filthy rich, so filthy rich that they can buy and sell billionaires, and they bomb Israel and knock over our skyscrapers. They also treat their people like dirt.

 

the middle east has the oil , its primarily us and the europeans fault that the situatino is like what it is there now, they didn't mess with the US, and it wasn't the same people who bombed our buildings that have the oil, Osama Binladen's family has oil operations not him.

 

the problem with corn-derived fuel is that it takes a lot of processing to convert it into mash, ferment it, and distill it. With hemp all that needs to be done is to press the seeds. This can be done by hand. If it had to be, the press could be made completely of wood, but it can be built with a few parts from a hardware store. Legal hemp would give any backwoods engineer the ability to go into his back forty, gather a few sacks of seed, and press enough fuel to run his car for a week without using electricity, expensive technology, fermentation, or distillation. The same fuel could also produce all of his energy needs from a few acres, heating and electricity. I personally would recommend the use of an optimized steam engine. Get the most out of the fuel with the least pollution.

 

I think you would have to seperate the plant from the fuel first, otherwise it would be like trying to run on peanut butter

[Thomas Kirby]

I think you would have to seperate the plant from the fuel first' date=' otherwise it would be like trying to run on peanut butter[/quote']

 

That's what items like cheesecloth are for.

[Douglas]

the government can do something about the gas prices = suspend the gas tax, use price caps,

Yeah, seems like reducing the tax would help. Price controls won't work, I think Nixon tried it in the early '70s, and Carter may have paid for that mistake in the late '70s.

[abeefaria]

we don't have that many sources of oil anymore, and if we were to simply take the oil from iraq or mexico, the oil price would skyrocket from the increased cost of extracting oil from iraq or mexico (terrorism would skyrocket) not to mention america would have an embargo placed on it in a second. This would make your expensive $3 gas tank would go up to $10-15 a gallon, not to mention a halt on most of the imported resources that come into the US.

 

I didn't write anything about the US extracting any oil.

[CPL.Luke]

you said take it from iraq... how do you think were giong to do that?

[reyam200]

you should check out the new hydrogen fuel cells.

GM says they are going to be on the market soon.(they may be already. im not sure)

http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/sustainability/reports/04/400_products/422_alt_fue.html

 

also the new hybrids are out.

[insane_alien]

i thought an apollo mission had a hydrogen fuelcell. they aint that new.

[CPL.Luke]

yeah but now they're starting to be used in cars. Previously they were only used in rockets and the like.

[diddly-squat]

we don't have that many sources of oil anymore' date=' and if we were to simply take the oil from iraq or mexico, the oil price would skyrocket from the increased cost of extracting oil from iraq or mexico (terrorism would skyrocket) not to mention america would have an embargo placed on it in a second. This would make your expensive $3 gas tank would go up to $10-15 a gallon, not to mention a halt on most of the imported resources that come into the US.

 

also the price of oil went up when we invaded iraq, not down [/quote']

 

There are plenty of sources of oil in the world. The fact is that OPEC is loosing its strangle hold on world oil production and there are now many non-OPEC countries producing sizable amounts of oil.

 

The thing that always make me laugh is how little most people know about resource economics. One could easily take the view that higher unit selling prices for commodities such as oil is a good thing as it promotes higher utilisation of the world's resources (that is conversion of Resources into Reserves and I use a capitol 'R' in the JORC sense).

 

What I'm suggesting is that there is a lot more to the price of petrol than most realise.

[CPL.Luke]

I was speaking specifically about american domestic sources of oil, I suppose I should have said america instead of we woops. I was trying to say that america does not have enough domestic oil reserves to become self-sufficient. (not to say america doesn't have enough coal to become self-sufficient, which isn't exactly a good option though)

[-Demosthenes-]

On the first note, YES, it is a seriouse problem, green house gases, CO2 etc... Not good, causing seriouse problems...

Well, that's nice that you know it's a problem... But I was more interested in how much and what kind of polution it is, and how it compares to other polution producers, becuase knowing that something is a problem and not know why or how, is border-line useless.

 

Reality: Big SUVs are allowed to emit up to 1.1 grams per mile of smog-causing nitrogen oxides, which is less than the 3 to 4 grams a mile from cars of the early 1960s but still a lot worse than today’s cars, which are only allowed to emit up to 0.2 grams per mile[/i'].

It has some of the information, and compares it to "today's cars" (I'm assuming smaller normal cars). This is useful, but it would be nicer to compare it to all of pullution:

Automobiles emit 19.5 pounds of carbon dioxide, a global-warming gas, for each gallon of gasoline they burn, as carbon from the gasoline is combined with oxygen from the air passing through the grille. SUVs, with their gas-guzzling ways, account for far less than 1 percent of all human emissions of global-warming gases.[/i']

Hmmm, I realize that this is a lot of polution, but where does the other 99% come from?

 

Some people could use a SUV, in Utah a lot of people have them. There are large families here, and a lot of people need to carry trailers and stuff on their car. So they could get a mini-van and a truck, or a SUV.

 

I don't know about that. There was an article a little while ago about riding bikes in urban areas actually being bad for your health due to all of the exhaust fumes.

No more breathing in Urban areas I have a hard time believing this.

And hemp can produce anywhere from 25 barrels of oil per acre on up. There is a lot of unused land, there is even a lot of unused hemp growing on that land. Some of it can be used to make ethanol, too. 1100 or so gallons of usable fuel from an acre of land each year is definitely a good thing. Takes carbon out of the atmosphere, creates a reservoir of carbon in usable fuel, may help with global warming, scrubs pollution from the air, and we can even eat a lot of the byproducts including the oil.

 

I try to tell people. I try to tell people. I try to tell people. Half the time I can't figure out what goes on their heads. The other half I don't want to know. Just let me sit here and rant a while, because for crying out loud, we should have had colonies on the moon by now. Gasoline should be a dollar a gallon and diesel made from hemp should be even less. We should be recycling the plastics that pool in different places in the ocean. People should learn how to raise fish for food in tanks at home like my grandfather used to. Stupid people shouldn't breed. Also, I think that by now it probably costs less to make your own ethanol for fuel than it costs for gasoline, and cars should be getting 50 miles per gallon while SUVs do at least 40. The Carnot efficiency equation is wrong, too. The sun still works to generate hot water for bathing and central heating. I think we've given up.

I'd like to see some kind of study on this.

I meant that alot of the US wells have since dried up, alot of the oil wells in the texas/nebraska area have gone dry.

 

I meant more US sources of oil

I thought that most oil ran out in the US before the '60's, did the US use to own the oil market in the 40's?

[Thomas Kirby]

Demothenes:

 

Why don't YOU do some studies on that? Find out for yourself. That's what science is all about. Don't accept government fiat as the last word on things like this. Know your subject.

[-Demosthenes-]

Why don't YOU do some studies on that? Find out for yourself. That's what science is all about. Don't accept government fiat as the last word on things like this. Know your subject.

So no one has to support claims that they make, and if you want to find out you have to research every little thing? That sucks.

[Pangloss]

Apparently we're not supposed to accept what the government tells us at face value, but we ARE supposed to accept what certain other individuals tell us at face value. The measure for determining which people are the correct ones to listen to? Beats me. We should just do what we're told, I guess. Or was it NOT do what we're told? I'm confused. Oh well, I'm sure someone will tell me what to think.

[Thomas Kirby]

So no one has to support claims that they make, and if you want to find out you have to research every little thing? That sucks.

 

 

C'mon. I don't mean it that way. I really would rather that more people researched these things and knew for themselves. What did I just say? Look this up for yourself. It takes a lot more explaining about the Carnot equation for sure, but a lot of the rest is just plain basic knowledge that should be general knowledge.

[-Demosthenes-]

When burned in a diesel engine, bio-diesel replaces the exhaust odor of petroleum diesel with the pleasant smell of hemp...

This was the most useful site I found: http://pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/offthegrid/bio-diesel.shtml

It gives directions on how to make bio-diesel, and some advice.

I have made a batch as low as $2.15USD/gal and as high (purchased a 5 gal can of commercial BD B100) at $5.50USD/gal.

This is made my an individual' date=' if made in factories and stuff I'd imagine it'd be cheaper.

The engines can work with thicker, heavier oil, or oil with higher viscosity, as long as it is heated to ease pumping and injection. These fuels are cheaper than clean, refined diesel oil, although they are dirtier. The biofuels straight vegetable oil (SVO) and waste vegetable oil (WVO) can fall into this category. Moving beyond that, use of low-grade fuels can lead to serious maintenance problems.

Thought I'd share my "knowledge discovery".

[jdurg]

Originally Posted by SUV myths and realities

Automobiles emit 19.5 pounds of carbon dioxide, a global-warming gas, for each gallon of gasoline they burn, as carbon from the gasoline is combined with oxygen from the air passing through the grille. SUVs, with their gas-guzzling ways, account for far less than 1 percent of all human emissions of global-warming gases.

 

I have a REALLY hard time believing that, and here's why.

 

19.5 pounds of CO2 is 8853 grams.

Gasoline has a density of about 0.737 grams/mL, so one gallon of gasoline weighs about 2790 grams.

 

If we assume that the combustion of gasoline is the same as the combustion of octane, we see that every mole of gas consumed produces 8 moles of carbon dioxide. If gas is mostly octane (Molecular weight is 106 g/mole), then for every 106 grams of gas you'll get 128 grams of CO2.

 

Based upon this calculation, one gallon of gas would produce around 3375.9 grams of CO2. That's less than half of the amount that was stated. Now I do know that gasoline isn't just octane. It generally has shorter carbon chains in there like heptane and whatnot, so real gasoline would actually produce LESS than the 3.4 kilograms I had calculated. I would REALLY like to see the equations they used to come up with that 19.5 pound amount.

 

Also, this is assuming 100% complete comubstion. We all know that automobile engines aren't 100% effective and a LOT of incomplete combusion goes on. So while I do not see the neccessity in having an SUV and think it's a waste of money, I do not understand how the 'anti-SUV' site came up with 19.5 pounds.

[Thomas Kirby]

Apparently we're not supposed to accept what the government tells us at face value, but we ARE supposed to accept what certain other individuals tell us at face value. The measure for determining which people are the correct ones to listen to? Beats me. We should just do what we're told, I guess. Or was it NOT do what we're told? I'm confused. Oh well, I'm sure someone will tell me what to think.

 

Pangloss, telling someone to look it up and learn it for himself is the exact opposite of telling him to take my word at face value.

 

The necessary next step for anyone who sees an important idea like this one is to do his own research and KNOW the material if he has the capacity. Reading my little research papers and opinions isn't enough.