Quote:
Originally Posted by Pellaz
Nowhere near. There isn't a distribution system in place for getting the grease to be processed, and I haven't heard of any serious plans to initiate one.
Yep. I remember reading a few months ago that even if every acre currently dedicated to growing corn for food was redirected to ethanol, it still wouldn't be enough.
(Brazil was luckier, since they can grow sugar cane in their climate and had plenty of useable land to convert from, err, rainforest.
Ooops.
Ya win some, you lose some....)
Specifically, I think I heard that ethanol was 30% less efficient than gasoline.
Maybe electrical, powered by nuclear fusion (NOTE: not fission) power-plants brought onto the grid, but I don't see that anytime before 2050, maybe 2040 if it's better-funded.
I had largely switched to CFL's about two years ago -- before AlGore did, in his Tennessee mansion  -- and the newer bulbs are lots better than the older ones. They "warm up" much faster now, and it seems like they last longer, too.
As for LEDs, I think they'll be fine for low-voltage applications, but they really DO throw a lot of EM. I can listen to AM radio at an LED traffic light and tell when the light will change by the signal interference thrown out by the LED walk-signals. 
Speaking of AlGore's house, I thought this was pretty ironic:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp |
NC is pretty environmentally progressive, you can actually find biodiesel stations in the triangle. It's about the same cost as regular diesel, but the impact on the environment is nil. Some of the local buses are running on biodiesel, it's nice to sit behind a bus that smells like french fries instead of diesel smoke.
We kinda need to be carefull about how much of the rainforest Brazil eats up, the Amazon basin is a very significant contributor to atomspheric oxygen.
I was speaking more specifically about an alternative to petroleum based internal combustion engines, there's natural gas (also in limited supply), hydrogen, electricity (does the generation process kill any gains?).
Personally, as far as electrical generation goes, as soon as we can afford it, we're going off the grid, and installing solar panels on the roof of our house, we have a fantastic southern exposure, and should be able to very significantly reduce if not eliminate our draw from the grid.
What Bush and Gore do with their houses is there own business, economics, will proabably dictate changes to what they're doing.