Ethanol -- Debate

[mattura]

Wow there are some chemists around!

Outside the US, most of the world still generates electricity from coal/petrol, reusable sources and nuclear fuel generation is terribly expensive...

what about inside the US? I'm curious...

 

[Zangetsu]

Electric batteries have a lifespan of 10 years. We would have to undergo a drastic new change in battery technology to make them any more efficient. Additionally there are plenty of environmental hazards with massive dead batteries afterwards.

A lot of proposals about using water as a fuel have MANY faults. The only one that has potential is that recently it was discovered that directing a certain frequency radio wave to a beaker of salt water caused disruptions in the dissolved salt ions and the water molecules, resulting in hydrogen bubbling up. The Energy Department is testing to see whether it's cost effective to power a generator to make a radio wave to form hydrogen (it is likely that this won't be efficient).

ever heard of organic batteries ?

ORB's are characterized by an extremely thin profile (0.3 mm), flexibility, and very fast charge time (about 30 seconds), in addition to a relatively high energy density (1 mWh per square cm). The technology is also being welcomed by environmentalists because ORB batteries do not contain any of the heavy metals that pose the problem of proper disposal.

 

[neverlate2day]

The problem is the the oil lobby, especially in USA is resisting the change because they have rich reserves in Texas & Alaska, their logic suits them, agreed. But what we do in other countries?

Anyone heard on Vinod Khosla?
I'll give a clue Sun Microsystems

Anyway if your not convinced that bio-fuels(generic for ethanol) is the way to go then see what he has to say