From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Dan Wylie-Sears

> > I can allready buy petrol with an ethanol mix.
>
> Ethanol as a fuel is pure politics.

Well, according to Zubrin, it's the politics of playing on the strengths
of the US and the Third World, as opposed to the strengths of those who
crave our annihilation.

We just had this article brought to our attention over on the SSI
Maillist:

An Energy Revolution
By Robert Zubrin
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18976/article_detail.asp

I'm well known as a critic of some of Zubrin's reasoning on the Mars vs.
O'Neills debate. But I have to say that I didn't put much stock in
Ethanol/Methanol until about an hour again. Zubrin's convinced me this
is a direction we should be heading in.

Regards,

Mike Combs

This is a bit afield from space settlement. Shall I reply here, or
shall we take it to a different venue? The one where I normally
discuss energy issues is http://cafeutne.org, in the Currents forum
or the Science forum. It requires registration.

I will note here that this statement from Zubrin is correct as far
as I know:

"The use of alcohol also reduces air pollution. In fact,
environmental advantages were the motivation for the initial
development of the first FFVs in California in the 1980s."

That's why I said ethanol *as a fuel*. As an emissions-control
additive, it's good.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Combs, Mike"
>
> From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Dan Wylie-Sears
>
> > > I can allready buy petrol with an ethanol mix.
> >
> > Ethanol as a fuel is pure politics.
>
> Well, according to Zubrin, it's the politics of playing on the
strengths
> of the US and the Third World, as opposed to the strengths of
those who
> crave our annihilation.
>
> We just had this article brought to our attention over on the SSI
> Maillist:
>
> An Energy Revolution
> By Robert Zubrin
> http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18976/article_detail.asp
>
> I'm well known as a critic of some of Zubrin's reasoning on the
Mars vs.
> O'Neills debate. But I have to say that I didn't put much stock in
> Ethanol/Methanol until about an hour again. Zubrin's convinced me
this

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Dan Wylie-Sears

> This is a bit afield from space settlement.
> Shall I reply here, or shall we take it to a
> different venue?

I think I could advocate it being on-topic with the following
justification:

If SPS is the only good alternative to continued dependence on
fossil-fuels, then we should continue to promote it as a path leading to
space settlement. If there are other good alternatives, then we may
need to re-think our space settlement strategies.

Regards,

Mike Combs

It's not just power plants either. Common everyday automobiles are part of
the challenge.

Hybrids are a start.

With asteroids mining, we have the materials for huge SPS platforms and
Platinum Group Metals are necessary for auto-emission abatement (catalytic
converters, etc) and making the best fuel cells around. Auto makers are the
biggest buyers for this stuff. The market is there. It's waiting.

George

On 1/30/06, Ian Woollard wrote:

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ian Woollard

> I think that SPS is actually competitive, provided it is
> built in large installations (~16 GW); even if launched
> purely from the ground.
>
> SPS is the most flexible technology except nuclear.

Yeah, I'm ready to come back to this view. Over on the SSI maillist,
Arthur Smith posted some good technical objections to biomass.

Regards,

Mike Combs

Well, the case of Zubrin is also mostly sound for me too. Specially
the part where he says something like "the hydrogen economy is a
stinking heap of bullshit". ;-)

As a Brazilian, I can give further details on the biofuels stuff. Our
alcohol program was created during the Brazilian military dictatorship
(1964-1986) because the generals in command considered "strategic" to
have an alternative to oil after the 70s oil shocks. Well, it turns
out that their idea was sound and there have been alcohol cars here
for the last 25 years or so. Sometimes alcohol gets more expensive
than gasoline, sometimes cheaper, and so in the last few years FFVs
(which we call simply "flex cars") started to be mass-produced, so
that consumers can use the cheapest fuel at hand. In the last year
flex cars were the preferred choice for people buying new cars. There
is also much talk now of using "exotic" fuels that given enough
incentive can be produced here, like the biodiesel made from dend,
babau, pequi, macaba (some native plants with oily seeds that we
have around) as well as more conventional plants like corn, cotton and
soy (major Brazilian exports). One can see pics of two biodiesel
prototypes being studied at
http://www.usp.br/agen/repgs/2003/pags/280.htm . It has been argued
that biodiesel-fueled cars would be more efficient and in average
cheaper to run than flex cars or pure alcohol-powered cars.

However, our relative success with biofuels should be taken with a
grain of salt. I think that in part that was possible due to our
steamy-hot, sun-scorched and rain-soaked climate that makes many
plants grow like weeds and allows for more than one crop per year
(often three crops a year) with minimal artificial energy inputs. The
soil in many regions also helps at least for many tropical crops. As
Pero Vaz de Caminha - the scribe of Pedro lvares Cabral's sea
expedition that discovered Brazil in year 1500 - wrote in his letter
to King Manuel I the Fortunate relating the discovery, "in this land,
anything that is seeded will grow", in a rather rough translation from
the Arcaic Potuguese to English.

So, I am kind of doubtful that in cooler countries like the U.S. one
could mass-produce biofuels with a significant energetic gain (i.e.,
perhaps the energy input would almost equals the energy output of the
process). If that is the case, than the U.S. would just exchange fuel
dependency on Middle East countries for dependency on tropical
countries. (Although this situation could still be advantageous
politically. The equatorial zone of Earth is enormous and has lots of
countries with very different kinds of cultures across four continents
that would never act in unison, while in the Middle East I see a
homogeneous Muslim civilization that somehow became homogeneously
hostile to Westerners.)

On 1/30/06, Combs, Mike wrote:
(...)
> An Energy Revolution
> By Robert Zubrin
> http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18976/article_detail.asp
>
> I'm well known as a critic of some of Zubrin's reasoning on the Mars vs.
> O'Neills debate. But I have to say that I didn't put much stock in
> Ethanol/Methanol until about an hour again. Zubrin's convinced me this
> is a direction we should be heading in.
(...)

I wouldn't be too quick to reject Hydrogen.

For now, hybrids appear to be gaining in popularity and that's a good start.

Whatever, the price of oil will shoot through the roof as depletion and
competition from China continue.

Consequently, something WILL undoubtedly be cheaper than oil. There's no
avoiding that fact.

I just beg to high Heaven we don't turn to something like coal. (lol)

George
http://www.cygo.com/

On 1/31/06, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

Unless I missed it, Zubrin makes no case for why coal (if it becomes
the major replacement for petroleum) should be used to make alcohols
rather than hydrocarbons. I've heard that the Nazis were cut off
from outside sources of petroleum and ran their whole economy and
war machine on syncrude made from coal.

Ground-based solar is clearly feasible but expensive. If SPS beats
ground-based solar, it will be because the factor of roughly four
("dark half the time, half-dark the rest of the time") beats the
costs of launch, transmission, and collection.

Wind is cheap -- competitive already -- but limited both in amount
and in how its availability is distributed over time and geography.

Coal is available in a total quantity much greater than petroleum
and natural gas. It can be converted into hydrocarbons, hydrogen,
or methanol (probably ethanol too). The cost of making petroleum-
equivalent from coal is said to be fifty-some dollars per barrel --
cheaper than current oil prices, but it has to be paid partly as a
huge up-front investment. I can't imagine the US ever getting
serious about climate change, or anyone else being able to force us
to, so in terms of prognistication it's as though that were a non-
issue.

Fission energy is available in roughly the same total quantity as
coal. The big problem is security, not just actual nuclear weapons
but simple "dirty bombs" made of some mid-level waste plus some
Timmy-McVeigh-level explosives. Fission produces heat that gets
used to make electricity, rather than producing anything you can
stick in your gas tank. But cars can run on batteries for the short
hauls and trains can run on third-rail electricity for the long ones.

Fusion, who knows. Not right away, certainly.

Biomass is a limited freebie from waste materials. Very limited,
and mostly in use already. Devoting vast amounts of land to
switchgrass or hemp or whatever isn't likely. The only thing
there's a suitably vast amount of is ocean: if it turns out that a
few pounds per square mile per year of iron and whatnot can triple
the biomass output of ocean, and that we can find (or breed or
genetically engineer) floating seaweed that stores energy as fat,
then biomass could work as a main energy source. Ethanol from corn
is sometimes calculated to be an energy loser, with all the
fertilzer and transport involved. I'm suspicious of those
calculations because their sources have an axe to grind, but they're
probably close enough to rule it out as a major source.

If we want a space resource to send back to earth to cover the start-
up costs, I would bet on platinum before energy.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, cygonaut
>
> It's not just power plants either. Common everyday automobiles
are part of
> the challenge.
>
> Hybrids are a start.
>
> With asteroids mining, we have the materials for huge SPS
platforms and
> Platinum Group Metals are necessary for auto-emission abatement
(catalytic
> converters, etc) and making the best fuel cells around. Auto
makers are the
> biggest buyers for this stuff. The market is there. It's waiting.
>
> George
>
> On 1/30/06, Ian Woollard wrote:
> >
> > On 1/30/06, Combs, Mike wrote:
> > > I think I could advocate it being on-topic with the following
> > > justification:
> > >
> > > If SPS is the only good alternative to continued dependence on
> > > fossil-fuels, then we should continue to promote it as a path
leading to
> > > space settlement. If there are other good alternatives, then
we may
> > > need to re-think our space settlement strategies.
> >
> > There's lots of alternatives to fossil fuels in fact:
> >
> > -nuclear
> > -wind
> > -tidal
> > -ground solar
> > -SPS
> > -ethanol
> > -vegetable oil (replacement for diesel/kerosene)
> > etc. etc.
> >
> > All have their pros and cons. Biofuels use up land capacity for
example.
> >
> > I think that SPS is actually competitive, provided it is built in
> > large installations (~16 GW); even if launched purely from the
ground.

> > SPS is the most flexible technology except nuclear.

So what's the problem with coal? Or are you talking about after we
start to run low on coal, or imagining that we'll stop emitting CO2
just because Antarctica melts and Europe loses its Gulf-Stream
warming?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Combs, Mike"
>
> From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ian Woollard
>
> > I think that SPS is actually competitive, provided it is
> > built in large installations (~16 GW); even if launched
> > purely from the ground.
> >
> > SPS is the most flexible technology except nuclear.
>
> Yeah, I'm ready to come back to this view. Over on the SSI
maillist,

Mostly joking about coal replacing oil. That would most assuredly be a
nightmare.

I really don't share the fascination for Zubrin verbosity.

Nor O'Niell's.

We have to get down to the REAL nuts and bolts of it and give these guys a
rest for gosh sakes.

George
http://www.cygo.com/

On 1/31/06, Dan Wylie-Sears wrote: