Donutz

Tequila plant could fuel vehicles and help reduce emissions


Two problems with this article:

1) They're not planning on producing more tequila -- they're trying to hijack tequila production!
2) Drinking tequila increases emissions. Or is that beer?

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Illegitimi non carborundum

Mountain Days: 30

HoboMaster

I really dislike this whole attempt to convert food product crops into vehicle fuel. It sounds like a really great idea on the outside, but on anything other then a very small scale it's not an efficient use of material at all. It's kind of like the meat industry; far more energy units are put into producing the meat then the meat will ever yield itself. You're much better off just using the crop to feed/inebriate people and instead invest in renewable energy which's only purpose is just that.

What would be revolutionary is if they spent money on inventing a super-high efficiency battery instead which would eliminate needing a combustion fuel source, and then you could just have everyone running off electricity. The electricity would be generated completely from domestic renewable processes, eliminating emissions and oil importation almost completely.

Or if they can't figure out the battery, there is always hydrogen, (which would also be created from domestic renewable processes as well)

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PowderHound and TreeNinja

CheeseForSteeze

All hydrocarbon based forms of fuels (ethanol being an oxygenated hydrocarbon) produce carbon dioxide and water constiuents when reacted with oxygen in stochiometric or excess quantities. At higher temperatures, reaction rates of oxygenated nitrogen products become significant, producing NOx products. This is no different than getting ethanol from corn and using that as a fuel.

gibbous

I'd like to think that if we put our minds and some research money into it we could at least find a way of extracting natural gas from shale that does not involve pumping millions of gallons of hazardous chemicals into the ground and polluting the shit out of the water table.

Unfortunately that would probably cost Haliburton more money, which quickly rules out the possibility of it ever happening.

gezsweet

I feel a bit mixed about this, for some reasons already stated. But if it can reduce the deforestation of the Amazon and other forests as well as the pressure on poor farmers, then I guess it ain't too bad. But I see this as more a short-to-medium-term thing. There are much better alternatives which should be invested in.

CheeseForSteeze

I work at a Gen III reactor, GE BWR design. Same design as the ones @ Daiichi Fukushima. Anyway, Gen III+ licensed reactors have combined construction and operating permits and are currently being built in the South. Check the NRC's website for information.

Gen III+ reactors feature lots of passive safety systems which are more reliable the current crop of Gen III reactor designs. GE-Hitachi ESBWR and Westinghouse AP1000 are the ones currently evaluated for license.

Gen IV liquid sodium moderated or pebble bed designs are a far and distant hope for the United States. It's a conundrum that because current plant designs are "unsafe" (and they are, to a degree) newer designs which are safer will not be licensed and brought online. And there is also a huge corporatist favortism for GE and Westinghouse in terms of the licensing process which makes pushing new reactor designs into even pilot programs damned near impossible.

The safeest reactors are centuries away in development. They would use fusion driven cores with a magnetic Tokamak style containment. As opposed to having 3 generations of fuel for a 2 year cycle in the core all at once, these reactors would be inherently safe, as their fuel loads inside the reactor would be infintesimally small at any instant and instabilities would terminate reactivity rather than potentially exacerbate it. They would also not be limited by decay heat since the reaction wouldn't involve fissioning heavy atoms in a beta decay process.

And if they would ever license a plant out West near the long season mountains, yes I would move there to work. The best option for snowboarders right now is Vermont Yankee. And it's not worth moving there if snowboarding is the goal.