Doctors F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr. presented their idea on how to turn greenhouse gases back into gas at the Alternative Energy Now Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida yesterday. This isn't the first time someone's thought of turning emissions into fuel. Dirty smog would be blown over potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide and then the Doctors would turn it back into either methanol, gasoline or even jet fuel, according to the New York Times.
This proposition has a lot of benefits. It doesn't take up any more land than any other factory. The process uses waste to make something useful. And, it doesn't require us to change consumer technology... Which is kind of a bummer, if you're into electric cars. But the Green Freedom project does have it's problems. It's not economically viable until gas costs more than $4.60 a gallon, and the process requires a lot of power, and the scientists say they prefer a nuclear plant.
While this accomplishes something in the fight to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and the political and military clashes we get ourselves in as a result, it would still be producing waste because of the need for a power plant. But the scientists are still about two years away from the time they expect to complete a successful prototype... So let's just hope solar will be economically feasible by then.
27.2.08
Branson tries out nuts for fuel!
Richard Branson's Virgin Airlines pulled an aerodynamic biofuel stunt on Sunday morning. They put a 20% biodiesel mixture that used oil from coconuts and babassu nuts in one of the four engines. They flew the Boeing 747 from London's Heathrow airport out to Amsterdam. This is the first flight using any alternative fuel.
Once again, Branson pledges his support to use biofuels in a rowdy public way. Which has of course, led to accusations of greenwashing. Unfortunately, the ever-common mud is flung that biolfuels do not make a net reduction in greenhouse emissions, because of farming practices, rainforest destruction, and the absence of out of the box thinking.
Most sincere environmentalists know that the only viable biofuels would be made from waste vegetable oil, or small, fast growing, non-food sources, i.e. algae. Branson told msnbc that, " It's true that there's only room for about 10 percent of the fuel supply in the U.S. to be derived from ethanol before it starts eating into the food supply. After that you've got to go to cellulose, and I believe by the time it gets to 10 percent we will have developed a way of making cellulosic possible."
So while Branson is being accused of greenwashing, he just putters along continuing to find reasonable ways to change our fuel sources, while staying open-minded about the future of fuel.
Once again, Branson pledges his support to use biofuels in a rowdy public way. Which has of course, led to accusations of greenwashing. Unfortunately, the ever-common mud is flung that biolfuels do not make a net reduction in greenhouse emissions, because of farming practices, rainforest destruction, and the absence of out of the box thinking.
Most sincere environmentalists know that the only viable biofuels would be made from waste vegetable oil, or small, fast growing, non-food sources, i.e. algae. Branson told msnbc that, " It's true that there's only room for about 10 percent of the fuel supply in the U.S. to be derived from ethanol before it starts eating into the food supply. After that you've got to go to cellulose, and I believe by the time it gets to 10 percent we will have developed a way of making cellulosic possible."
So while Branson is being accused of greenwashing, he just putters along continuing to find reasonable ways to change our fuel sources, while staying open-minded about the future of fuel.
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