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Andrew Noonan Carl Dias Energy and Water Wiki 1) What is the problem at hand? The problem at hand can be looked at from several different aspects. In all we are running out of our main energy sources quickly and we do not have enough other energy sources to take its place. It is expected that within the next twenty to thirty years our fossil fuels which we use now will come to an end. Fossil fuels have been used for energy since the Industrial Revolution during the 1900’s. Fossil fuels are pretty easy to get to and they generate energy rather quickly. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The bad part is which will take its place. The good part is we will slow down the destruction to our atmosphere and come out with a more effective power. Ever since fire was discovered we were burning fossil fuels. Some common fossil fuels are oil, coal, and natural resources such as wood. Our world gets its energy from several different places daily. Around 28% of our energy comes from coal, 40% comes from oil, natural gas 20%, and the remainder comes from other fossil fuels. 2) What is the driving force of the problem? Several factors drive the problem of using fossil fuels. Some problems are that we are running out of fossil fuels, our current main energy source. As well as the pollution factor which has caused great damage already. Our climate is changing as well. Some believe global warming is in effect due to this. The “greenhouse effect” which describes the accumulation of gas that traps heat in the atmosphere is acting as a greenhouse. It is important because our earth is slowly getting warmer due to this extra magnification of this. One important notice is that we are melting our ice caps at the north and the south poles. This will cause major flooding if it is all melted. Fossil fuels and biomass pollute through creating carbon dioxide. Humans can’t breathe carbon dioxide. Even worse when we burn these fossil fuels there are some particulates that get released and we inhale which causes problems in our respiratory systems. Humans are ultimately the driving force of this problem. We keep burning fossil fuels even though we know we are doing harm and we can already see global warming in effect. Newer technologies however are creating a cleaner way to get energy.

3) To solve the climate change problem people are getting really creative. Everything from biodiesel in cars, to hydrogen cars. Some people have even made solar panel vehicles as well. Some things we notice just around our area taking effect are wind turbines. They create enormous amount of energy while having no side effects to the environment such as carbon dioxide. What we are doing not to solve it. We are still burning vast amounts of fossil fuels and drilling for more and more. Some hydrogen powered cars have come out but there is only one gas station in the United States making people not drive them. It is expected that we only have 40 years of oil left at the rate at which we are going right now. When were out of oil we have to change our ways big time and hopefully we will be ready for that day. Each day in which we go about our daily tasks we burn 800,000 tons of fossil fuels. To solve burning fossil fuels we can turn to wind turbines. They produce enough energy to power neighborhoods, and release stress off of the power plants. The wind turbines work by having a series of 3 blades which rotate with the wind as an old windmill would do. But the difference between the wind turbine and a wind mill is that the wind mill turns to produce energy to gears which would work a factory etc. and wind turbines connect to an energy converter which produces electricity. It’s a free and healthy addition that would help the environment. Some people complain they are ugly to look at and there loud, but they are one easy way out in the future. Some companies have already tried to place these in wind farms off of some states in the ocean and in country side, some have passed but many have not yet due to being voted out by the towns. As I said before they are producing hydrogen cars which work by converting hydrogen into electricity through the fuel cell. As it converts it gives off heat and water as byproduct. There are some problems with these though. For one they would be expensive. And for a safety reason they are extremely explosive and difficult to store it. We would need to produce the hydrogen as well. That is what some people are currently doing and not doing to solve the problem at hand! To go from fossil fuels to non fossil fuel energy creation the author Vaclac Smil explains what we will need to go through in order for that to happen: //“An impartial examination of some basic principles reveals five factors that will make the transition to a non-fossil world far more difficult than is commonly realised. These are: the scale of the shift; the lower energy density of the replacement fuels; the substantially lower power density of renewable energy extraction; intermittency of renewable flows; and uneven distribution of renewable energy resources.” // There is more information on those points as he describes them. The first point is the shift of the scale. Before the industrial revolution most energy came from biomass such as wood burning. Today it comes from fossil fuels as previously explained. One of the problems is that we don’t have enough energy available currently to replace that scale of power. Number two is energy density. Replacing petroleum or crude oil with liquid biofuels would require a 1.5 ratio which would be more costly and more difficult. It would also burn a lot faster. The next point is power density of energy production. This refers to the rate of production per area of land. Fossil fuels yield 102W per meter while hydro and wind power are more like 10W for the same area while only solar gets above 20W. The next point in which he makes is intermittency. Many newer sources of energy such as wind and solar aren’t good for base load supplies while storage is also a challenge for many non-fossil fuel sources. This is what makes hydrogen cars so dangerous to drive. If the fuel cell is punctured or crushed it could be a hydrogen bomb for say. And the last point in which he describes in the geographic distribution. Much is made of uneven distribution of oil and gas. Renewable flows are also spread out unevenly and some other factors go off that as well. Cloudiness in the equatorial zone reduces direct solar radiation; whole stretches of continent have insufficient wind where the wind farms wouldn’t do much good. He says in a quote:

//“Even then, because of the enormity of requisite technical and infrastructural requirements, many decades will be needed to capture substantial market shares on continental or global scales. A non-fossil world may be highly desirable, but getting there will demand great determination, cost and patience.” // This infers that in order to solve the dilemma we will still need to burn fossil fuels until it is completely solved so there is no room for error. It will demand great patience of engineers and scientists and cooperation from the people. If people would cooperate better we would already be a step ahead. A few years ago a wind farm was going off of Nantucket Ma but the people didn’t want to see wind turbines when they looked out there windows into the ocean. It got disapproved and now nothing is different due to personal conflict. In order to solve the conflicts we need to take a brave step and move into some areas in which we are not comfortable with. 9) Describe how the critics would discuss it. Critics could discuss the effects of biodiesel on helping the environment on several different accounts. For one is it better than regular diesel? Does it help the environment more? How much energy does it take to make? These are just a couple of several questions which should be asked when looking into biodiesel. Critics would discuss it as how much can we produce in order for everyone’s car to run off of it. Biodiesel is a form of diesel manufactured from vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled restaurant greases. It is safe and biodegradable as well. It produces less air pollutants than petroleum based diesel. Those are some of the major topics in which I think they would cover in a conversation about the effects of biodiesel. From personal experience it is a much cheaper way to run your diesel truck or car and I recommend it. The only downside is that it smells like hamburgers and fries when you drive so you get a little hungry. There is another issue concerning biodiesel as well. You can’t just put the grease or vegetable oils straight into your vehicle. It has to go through a process in which it goes through some fine strainers to remove all the fine particles out so it will not clog up your engine. The way I do it is by boiling the vegetable oil after you strain it and then add chemicals in which will make it burn more efficient and then pour it into gas tanks the day after. You should never fuel your car or truck with clean or used grease or vegetable oil that has not been converted to biodiesel. It will result with damage to your engine. This is what I think critics would talk about. It is better for the environment and we can put something that we don’t need to good use. But the amount we would need to power everyone’s car isn’t logical and I don’t think it would be all too practical. 10/11) If it already makes up a lot of the world's fuel/energy supply explain why. If it doesn't make up much of the world’s fuel/energy supply explains why. Biodiesel does not create a lot of the world’s fuel or energy supply. There are many disadvantages to using biodiesel. First one is the use of blends above B5 is not yet warrantied by auto makers. So if you use this and your car breaks down you’re going to be in some deep trouble. And while using biodiesel you could expect to get lower fuel economy. As well as your power could be expected to be 10% lower than normal for B100 and 2% for B20. It is currently more expensive as well. Even though there are less carbon dioxide pollutants there are more nitrogen oxide emissions. Another fact is B100 is generally not suitable for use in low temperatures. From personal experience diesels and winter do not get along well due to the glow plugs not being able to warm up fast enough and having enough energy to circulate very thick cold diesel fuel at the same time. This is why you would need to install a block heater just so you could start it, and the energy that takes is huge. Last winter when I would plug it into my house it would blow a few circuits that are how much power it demanded. The electric bill rose almost 300$ for having my diesel truck plugged in from 5am to 7am. Using biodiesel would make it more unreliable as well. You would need to build in some filters to strain out the crap just so it could run and when it was cold it would take a lot more energy for that process. B100 is generally not suitable for use in low temperatures. Concerns about B100’s impact on engine durability are also a huge question while dealing with this. Biodiesel are easily utilize but not readily accessible with our current states. The use of biofuel is not too complicated compared to other forms of renewable energy such as solar panels wind and so on so forth. It doesn’t require special equipment or a modification in the engines and most vehicles will barely change a thing. The biofuel can be readily combined with conventional petroleum diesel in your fuel tank at any point in time and in some instances particularly true for ethanol. You may have to look for flex fuel car models and if not biodiesel can run most diesel operated engines. I say hell yeah to this because it will save you money. There is yet another problem with using biodiesel. Crops are not enough and it will be really hard to renew it. It’s a fact that biofuels are derived from biomass that is renewable and biodegradable and for this reason it will cause lasting effects on generations to come. One major concern of wide scale biodiesel production is the increased need of growing crops to meet the demand and this leads to some arguments. Since it might require more extensive land that will involve forests there will be people who will be against this because it will destroy many forests and were already running out of those. From what Robert Paiper says regarding if we were to replace ourselves with biodiesel: <span style="display: block; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"> In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification – I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres – far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals. <span style="display: block; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"> It would be preferable to spread the algae production around the country, to lessen the cost and energy used in transporting the feedstocks. Algae farms could also be constructed to use waste streams (either human waste or animal waste from animal farms) as a food source, which would provide a beautiful way of spreading algae production around the country. Nutrients can also be extracted from the algae for the production of a fertilizer high in nitrogen and phosphorous. By using waste streams (agricultural, farm animal waste, and human sewage) as the nutrient source, these farms essentially also provide a means of recycling nutrients from fertilizer to food to waste and back to fertilizer.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">From what he says it wouldn’t be logical to change to biodiesel right now. There isn’t enough area to cover and make enough room for the production of the resources which we would need for this project. There are more bad effects of why we shouldn’t use biodiesel in wide scale production. To create biodiesel it uses more energy to make it than the energy which it will produce. That is why it just wouldn’t make sense to use it all over. Many tests have been done to prove that biofuels like biodiesel generate energy that is comparable to conventional diesel fuel. Ethanol puts out 1.5 units of energy for every unit of energy being used in the process. Biodiesel even has an output of 3.2 units of energy to every unit of energy used on its production which is pretty low. To make biodiesel it takes 20% of power and so then you only get 80% of true power out of it. We are truly reliant on fossil fuels right now. Conservation is still the primary strategy. Currently there isn’t much work being done on biodiesel compared to just usually diesel fuel due to costs of making it and how many people actually use it. If we rely off biodiesel this world wouldn’t produce enough energy still. It is vital that we come up with other sources of energy such as wind and solar before we run out of these vital fossil fuels. The pros to cons of biodiesel don’t exactly line up and there are many more bad things to say about using biodiesel than the good effects of converting to it. The cost would be very expensive as well. As Paiper regards the cost he states: <span style="display: block; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"> In “The Controlled Eutrophication process: Using Microalgae for CO2 Utilization and Agircultural Fertilizer Recycling”, the authors estimated a cost per hectare of $40,000 for algal ponds. In their model, the algal ponds would be built around the Salton Sea (in the Sonora desert) feeding off of the agircultural waste streams that normally pollute the Salton Sea with over 10,000 tons of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers each year. The estimate is based on fairly large ponds, 8 hectares in size each. To be conservative (since their estimate is fairly optimistic), we’ll arbitrarily increase the cost per hectare by 100% as a margin of safety. That brings the cost per hectare to $80,000. Ponds equivalent to their design could be built around the country, using wastewater streams (human, animal, and agricultural) as feed sources. We found that at NREL’s yield rates, 15,000 square miles (3.85 million hectares) of algae ponds would be needed to replace all petroleum transportation fuels with biodiesel. At the cost of $80,000 per hectare, that would work out to roughly $308 billion to build the farms. <span style="display: block; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"> The operating costs (including power consumption, labor, chemicals, and fixed capital costs (taxes, maintenance, insurance, depreciation, and return on investment) worked out to $12,000 per hectare. That would equate to $46.2 billion per year for all the algae farms, to yield all the oil feedstock necessary for the entire country. Compare that to the $100-150 billion the US spends each year just on purchasing crude oil from foreign countries, with all of that money leaving the US economy.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">It would be extremely illogical for us to transfer to biodiesel. The last thing we need is something that would hurt our economy more. Just to build the farms would put us way more in debt and we currently can’t do that. These are just a few reasons for why it is not one of the world’s main energy sources right now. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Now we can discuss the good effects of biodiesel. One obvious factor is that if we convert to biodiesel more jobs will open up. This would really help out our economy right now because were on the verge of an economic depression. In a simple sense a good thing about biodiesel as well is that it is naturally grown as well. This will stop drilling offshore and in other senses make our world just that much cleaner. It can create a number of jobs for our own farmers as well so we wouldn’t have to rely off other countries as much and that too would stimulate the economy. Our reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels will be significantly reduced. More the biodiesels emit non-toxic and cleaner emissions in comparison to traditional fuels. They do not promote global warming since the carbon they emit is taken back to the environment. You can learn more about that through the carbon cycle.

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