91 comments on Ammonia and Biofuels
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GAIA Host Collective
Also, does anyone know whether pure H20 is required for electrolis processes? Could excess wind energy also be used to osmoticially purify brines and polluted water in non-peak electrical useage periods?
This is a wonderful article, I only hope Vinod Khosla pays attention because it addresses his EROI problem with ethanol.
Still, an interesting essay. A technically elegant idea.
We're probably going to end up burning it for heat.
There are already people doing it. Someone at PeakOil.com was bragging about how they were burning PVC pipe in their wood stove.
I hate to think about what kind of emissions that would generate...
I live in a lovely older wooded area near DC and I can't help pondering the fate of the mature trees all around the area when the NG and grid go down. Americans clear cut most of New England with 2 man saws before 1880. The last dribbles of gasoline from the pumps may wind up in chainsaws rather than Priuses.
-Matt, new e-bike rider, DC
I imagine those 'mcMansions' going the way of some of those neighbourhoods in Detroit: just the odd lonely house standing amidst deserted lots with rubble in them-- maybe with huge razor wire fences on the survivors (South Africa is a bit like this in places). Homeless people sheltering in the ones that remain.
Some people in the society will always have access to fuel and transport. They will cluster in protected zones or parts of cities.
Plastic is harder to recycle. Burning it strikes me as the height of folly-- what if your kids get a whiff?
After D-Day, the Germans (a garrison of about 8,000) were dug in Jersey (British island off the French coast) until V-E Day. The local population (about 20,000) nearly starved as all supplies were cut off. Eventually a Red Cross Convoy was organised from England to provide some food to the locals.
Same thing happened in Holland from September 1944 to May 1945. The Dutch had assisted the Allied paratroopers, and the German occupation authorities simply cut off all food and fuel transport, through one of the coldest winters of the Century.
If someone wasn't living in their house, the roof and furnishings were stripped for firewood, ditto the trees.
This is why up until modern times there were severe penalties for cutting down trees on private or common land: down to losing a hand, whipping or permanent scaring. Primitive societies have always had social means to control deforestation.
If salt water needs to be desalinated first, then the energy costs of that need to be factored in.
Tony
Instead of electrolysis you could go with a thermal-based system.
Oxygen (as an OH- ion) combines with Na to form NaOH. That's the basis of the chlor-alkali process. But it uses a highly concentrated brine in the process.