Other green energy....whats the pros and cons?

[Wyatt earp]

Was just wondering about it, like bio mas, making methane from garbage dumps etc...etc...

I didn't know this till today a local plant has methane specifically piped in from the local land fill, the guy I was talking to says it uses10% in mass of the dump to produce the methane .

With bio mass, I know a bunch of Europen companys are building/ built basically pellet mills in the south and sending the pellets to Europe in place of coal......


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[Wuwei]

In order to get energy of some sort, you need energy to do so. For example ethanol from corn requires a certain amount of energy for farming, irrigation, fertilization, reaping, heat for fermenting, purifying, transportation, etc. When you put that energy into the process you have to weigh it against the ethanol energy you get out of it. For ethanol it turns out that you have to put at least 1.6 units of energy in to get one unit of energy out. That is very inefficient.

The ratio of the amount of energy you need to get the energy is called Energy Return On Energy Investment. It's a neat way of comparing the total costs without using a monetary system. Here is a chart of EROEI for various technologies. Notice coal is very efficient. Gas was near 40 a couple decades ago, but is now less than half that because the oil is now a lot more expensive to get out of the ground.

The chart doesn't show too much in the way of alternate green energy, so an analysis would have to be done for each new process.

 

[tinydancer]

Was just wondering about it, like bio mas, making methane from garbage dumps etc...etc...

I didn't know this till today a local plant has methane specifically piped in from the local land fill, the guy I was talking to says it uses10% in mass of the dump to produce the methane .

With bio mass, I know a bunch of Europen companys are building/ built basically pellet mills in the south and sending the pellets to Europe in place of coal......


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The alternatives are out there. The problem is they are a lot of work. When we went primitive it was a full time job. The house was too big but 20/20 hindsight is always perfect. 2,000 square feet and two story. 26 windows. All old time windows. That needless to say leaked

Giant fireplace in the living room. Kitchen had a wood stove. We put in a hand pump for water in the basement. It was a journey beyond. I learned right quick you really could make an udon noodle stir fry in the fireplace. Ha ha. I had no choice. I refused to be lowered to Mac & Cheese. My neighbors got a kick out of driving by and smelling garlic out of the chimney.

Second floor kerosene heaters.

But when you live that simple; that penultimate green life that we lived, you have to learn what it takes to go green. After those years of pumping water by hand to flush a toilet I have a monumental admiration of our water supplies and how we use them. You prime and pump that baby and you have no idea how nice it is to turn on a tap or flush a toilet.

 

[Old Rocks]

No way I would go primitive. Been there, done that. As someone that makes his living understanding, building, maintaining, and repairing machinery, there are just too many ways to build a machine to do the work in 1/10 the time.