On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 12:04:40 -0400, "Richard S. Westmoreland"
wrote:

"nightbat" wrote in message
...
nightbat wrote
I think the UN should do something useful for once and make
an all out effort to advance the (some say unachievable) goal
of a practical Cold Fusion free energy generator.

Why cold fusion? I don't think we should be trying to use our limited
supply of water as fuel. We should focus more on solar-based energy
sources
that can be converted into alcohol based fuels.

Well Rick, agriculture is very heavy fresh water dependent as a
general rule. And Uncle Al previously posted that the researched and
tried present necessary high fuel processing costs payback for corn or
other fuel crop bushel yields to alcohol conversion ratios were not cost
effective. There is a guy over in newsgroup alt.energy.homepower by the
name of Steve Spence that says the use of spent cooking oil in adapted
diesel engines is economical and feasible if apparently only a few know
about it versus sudden mass demand. Wasn't one of the original German
rear engine diesel Volkswagen, Mercedes cars, or didn't the guy who
invented the diesel engine originally design it to run on peanut oil?

The water used in agriculture, will always remain to be water, continuously
resupplying in a cycle. You can't have a net gain of energy from colf
fusion unless some of that water is no longer water, unless I'm missing a
point of how that works.

That is the same argument I hear about alcohol. Corn does not make an
effective base for alcohol production. So what? Is that the only way we
can mass produce alcohol?

ethanol? pretty much the only economical way. economic alcohol from
cellulose would be a major breakthrough.
the brazilians use bagasse (cane sugar waste) to make alcohol, but you
run into the same economics.

methanol from coal is doable, but its also an energy intensive
process.


Save the corn for the cows.

http://biotech.about.com/library/wee...romgarbage.htm

yeah, but you need garbage in the first place. you will always get
out less energy than the energy put in to make the product in the
first place.

http://www.iogen.ca/3000.html

http://www.oceanethanol.com/

Rick