Grow Your Own Everything
The neocon war blog China Confidential takes the Obama-Biden campaign to task for pushing “biodiesel baloney.”
“. . .biofuels are so menacing that opposition to their use cuts across political and ideological lines to an astonishing extent–from Cuba’s Communist leader, Fidel Castro, to America’s libertarian Cato Institute and conservative Heritage Foundation.”
“But Barack Obama apparently sees the poison as a panacea.”
It’s an argument that I hear (in various forms) all the time:
“Simply put, except for coal liquefaction and gasification, and possibly also shale oil, there are no viable alternatives to the energy sources on which the world runs and will continue to run for at least the next 20 years. Anyone who tells you otherwise is misinformed or lying.”
Here’s a dissenting view in Live Science by an inventor with a proven track record of technology predictions:
“BOSTON — He predicted the fall of the Soviet Union. He predicted the explosive spread of the Internet and wireless access.”
“Now futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil is part of distinguished panel of engineers that says solar power will scale up to produce all the energy needs of Earth’s people in 20 years.”
Speaking of China, 12 new cities housing 400 million people will use cradle to cradle design employing non-toxic infinitely recyclable chemistry, even though the designer seems skeptical that purely biological product cycles could support Earth’s current population. This is a fine technical point that is worth an interview by itself.
Yet, Oak Ridge National Laboratory is supporting a Bioenergy Feedstock Information Network that could prove the viability of biomass supported cities:
“Carbon dioxide (CO2) is withdrawn from the atmosphere by the process of plant growth (photosynthesis) and converted into vegetation biomass (trees, grasses, and other crops). Harvested biomass, together with forestry and crop residues, can be converted into building materials, paper, fuels, food, animal feed and other products such as plant-derived chemicals (waxes, cleaners, etc.).”
The question for me is how many people could be supported in this manner.
“The energy to drive the cycle and provide for the human population comes from the sun, and will continue for many generations at a stable cost, and without depletion of resources.”
October 16th, 2008 at 7:14 am
[…] production of any kind is preferable to invasions in the Middle East. But good old Kurzweil is my source predicting solar breakthroughs able to provide all our energy needs in 20 years as opposed to neocon war bloggers who insist that […]