DrPawn-I understand the terrible state of American education, so it's likely you don't understand your own statements, and not surprising that you have nearly every fact wrong ("conservatives" like you and Bill O'Really have little or no use for facts, they much prefer "truthieness" where you say what you want and pretend it's fact). It's true, warming has happened in the past, possibly even the amount of warming likely to come from the change in composition of our atmosphere. The thing you ignore there is that, when this happened in the past, over 95% of all species, and over 99% of all biomass was extinguished. That would include people this time, I mention that because apparently people are all that matters in your eyes. Humans already exist in many places where they can't survive without technology, and the number of humans can't be sustained even with it. We are most likely one of the species that won't survive.
The arctic CAN'T survive a "little warming", it's already disapearing, and it takes more than a decade for polar bears to evolve into polar seals, (I know, I know, evolution is also a liberal lie, right?)so they are HOSED. Methane hydrate is melting, accelerating the rate of temperature change, and a little warming would accelerate this process exponentially.
I suppose you won't admit there's a problem until something like this happens, and then you'll find a way to blame Obama for it.
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/2012/

If only we could put these "nay sayers" on/in their own biosphere and let them kill themselves off without taking the rest of us with them. A man can dream, can't he?

>> ^oileanach
The power source is a serious issue I agree. I can't stand it when people suggest that electricity (or similarly hydrogen) is a SOURCE of energy - it's just a means of transmission. Now in a place like France where they have more nuclear power than they can use (especially at night) charging batteries would be a good alternative to burning fossil fuels.

>> ^Kagenin
Quote from his comments:
Here in Southern California (power company: SCE), when I charge this bike, about 50% of the electricity comes from natural gas, 20% from Nuclear, 15% renewable (Geothermal, Wind, etc), and only 9% comes from coal

Nuclear energy and gas/coal are unsustainable/inefficient/old-fashioned/dangerous (esp. nuclear)/centralised (elitist) sources of energy, e.g. read this article by Jeremy Rifkin
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0929-33.htm
Conclusion of the article is that there are a lot better options available: "Instead, we should pursue an aggressive effort to bring the full range of decentralized renewable technologies online: solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass. And we should establish a hydrogen storage infrastructure to ensure a steady, uninterrupted supply of power for our electricity needs and for transportation."

^
Rhesus
Is there a "will" involved anywhere along this path. What compels DNA to replicate. Sometimes it seems inadequate to reduce it to chance chemical bonding. Though, it does appear the entire earthly biomass heaves and churns at the command of the double helix. Ultimately, I make the decision whether mine is perpetuated or not. Right now the DNA is saying, "perpetuate, perpetuate," Damn stuff won't leave me alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption

One Tenth of New Mexico would only receive 4*10^20 J of sunlight in a year, and the US uses 1.2*10^20 J per year, so he's assuming an efficiency of 30% for the whole process, including photosynthesis, refining and transportation of the final product? I call bullshit. Photosynthesis is typically less than 1% efficient, and even the most efficient known species of algae convert light to biomass at 3-6% efficiency.


Humans use 5*10^20 J per year, and over 80% of that is fossil fuel.

Only 4*10^24 J per year of sunlight reaches the earth (do the math)

Assuming photosynthesis efficiency of 1% and fermentation+distillation+transportation efficiency of 25%, you would have to cover 1/25 of the earth's cross-section with biofuel-growing (that's at least 1/4 of the total arable land, depending on latitude) to cover the world's energy needs. Burning biofuels still produces atmospheric pollution like ozone and nitrogen oxides. Elecrtic cars will pollute the atmosphere less than any biofuel internal-combustion car.

Anything based on photosynthesis is going to be wildly inefficient compared to solar thermal generators.

Further reading:

Wikipedia: 2007–2008 world food price crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_world_food_price_crisis

-United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
http://www.righttofood.org/
-EBIO
http://www.ebio.org/home.php

EU: An EU Strategy for Biofuels
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/biomass/biofuel/index_en.htm
EU rethinks biofuels guidelines (14 January 2008)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7186380.stm

BBC: Biofuels 'crime against humanity' (27 October 2007)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7065061.stm
At the end this article refers to
IMF: Biofuel Demand Pushes Up Food Prices
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2007/RES1017A.htm

In the 1920's the Du Pont company developed and patented fuel additives such as tetraethyl lead, as well as the sulfate and sulfite processes for manufacture of pulp paper and numerous new synthetic products such as nylon, cellophane, and other plastics. At the same time other companies were developing synthetic products from renewable biomass resources--especially hemp. The hemp decorticator promised to eliminate much of the need for wood-pulp paper, thus threatening to drastically reduce the value of the vast timberlands still owned by Hearst. Ford and other companies were already promising to make every product from cannabis carbohydrates that was currently currently being made from petroleum hydrocarbons. In response, from 1935 to 1937, Du Pont lobbied the chief counsel of the Treasury Department, Herman Oliphant, for the prohibition of cannabis, assuring him that Du Pont's synthetic petrochemicals (such as urethane) could replace hemp seed oil in the marketplace.

William Randolf Hearst hated minorities, and he used his chain of newspapers to aggravate racial tensions at every opportunity. Hearst especially hated Mexicans. Hearst papers portrayed Mexicans as lazy, degenerate, and violent, and as marijuana smokers and job stealers. The real motive behind this prejudice may well have been that Hearst had lost 800,000 acres of prime timberland to the rebel Pancho Villa, suggesting that Hearst's racism was fueled by Mexican threat to his empire.


Just another FYI:
Peter Bensinger is a former head of the DEA. He and his partner Robert DuPont (former Director of NIDA) created Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, which profits from selling drug war related consulting and testing services.

maybe the glass of wine i just had took me hard, but..

is it me, or was there absolutely no tangible content in that video whatsoever? i admit i watched it to half way and then turned it off, because my alcohol-heightened senses informed me that i had spent 4-5 minutes listening to a guy with a voiceover-voice tell me that "the liquid goes through the cyclic phlange and then into a reverse modulator psychotrope, after being distillerated by the heliocentric liquification fluid, it gets turned into a compound known as dodecahedrionic-superfragrant-biomassical-enhancetrope, which we can then use in the .........."

i didn't get anything from this video other than some dudes think they've come up with a way of turning landfill waste into fuel by the use of a machine

i'm going to assume that the machine needs fuel to run.. so i won't ask what sort of fuel it uses, because that's either going to be an embarassing shuffling of feet, or another dose of technojargon that doesn't actually say anything

someone please explain something of value that can be taken from this video? have we got a good source of energy from landfill sites? CAN IT BE SHOWN AND/OR PROVEN?