Ethanol to Hydrogen Reactor Developed 839
guacamolefoo writes "CNN reports that researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a small (2 ft. high) hydrogen reactor that turns ethanol into hydrogen and then uses a fuel cell to turn the hydrogen into electricity. It notably does not use fossil fuels in the process. I knew that liquor would save us all some day."
Not now..... (Score:2, Insightful)
It'll never make it in this country. Bush and Cheney will make sure their funding gets pulled.
Average Slashdot user (Score:5, Insightful)
But not anywhere close enough for your average Slashdot user.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:2, Insightful)
Why Hydrogen? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
Our current industrial-ag model of crop production consumes quite a lot of fossil fuels. That does not mean the same thing as "growing corn and converting it to ethanol requires fossil fuels".
Producing ethanol requires nothing more than the sun, some corn, and bacteria. Yes, you'll notice that list includes an energy source, but not "oil".
Using Ethanol as a fuel is mostly a way to funnel money to Corn Belt farmers.
To that extent, I will agree with you, because we do use an industrial-ag model of crop production. We don't need to, though.
What happens to the Carbon?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Corn ain't free! (Score:5, Insightful)
How many gallons of oil does it take to put a gallon of gasoline in your tank. And remember one gallon of oil does not equal one gallon of gasoline.
Also, if you are going to be paying money to fuel your car would you rather pay it to American farmers and corporations or foreign oil barons and corporations.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:3, Insightful)
Or even with fossil fuels, in such a way that it makes sense to do at all...
Inquiring minds want to know.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:5, Insightful)
Using the hydrogen of course. Duh.
Re:Average Slashdot user (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you run a hairdryer all day long?
A 1Kw fuel cell, running 24/7 and charging a battery array, would almost take care of a typical home's electricity needs. I agree only 1Kw seems a tad low, but 2Kw would more than suffice for most homes.
For comparison, in CA, on-grid "normal" homes (ie, all the standard electric-sucking toys) with a supplimentary 3Kw solar array (which only really helps for less than eight hours per day) can basically break even on their electic bills.
no fossil fuels? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since ethanol is usually made from plants which have to be cultivated by equipment that burns oil -- combines, tankers, pumps, etc -- my understanding is that the production of ethanol is actually wasteful of fossil fuels. I've read (but haven't been able to corroborate) that the energy required to produce a gallon of ethanol is actually more than the energy produced by a gallon of ethanol.
So, is it really cleaner when you look at the big picture? Is it more efficient?
There's also the cost. Corn-based ethanol is inexpensive because of the huge subsidies the US government gives corn growers. There have been some primetime specials lately connecting the dots between lobbyists, corn production, and the ever growing waistlines of Americans. The small blurb in the article regarding economic potential for farmers is a huge understatement considering these subsidies.
Is this just cool a Good Thing?
Re:Corn ain't free! (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds a lot to me like saying - "yeah that new C language seems o.k. but you still need language X to write a compiler for it- so what's the point" But once you move beyond that- you can drop language X or in this case fossil fuels. What if your farm equipment starts running on fuel cells? The move from fossil fuels has to take place in steps.
Re:Just burn the fossil fuels (Score:3, Insightful)
And when we have powerful enough fuel-cell enginges, we won't have all that farm equipment relying on fossil fuels, so they will be taken out of the equation.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:5, Insightful)
You might respond to this by saying, "But it takes less energy to get oil out of the ground than that oil eventually produces when burned!" Well, not exactly. The energy that went into making that oil was expended millions of years ago, and it all started as solar energy that was converted into plant and animal matter by the appropriate biological processes. Not really any different than the ethanol produced by plants that are grown with solar energy.
It's just that those hundreds of millions of years produced a large reserve of oil, so that the energy expended in finding it, drilling it, refining it, and transporting it is less than the amount of energy we get out of it -- but the total amount of energy that's gone into getting the oil into a usable form *is* still greater than the amount that's produced when it burns.
The amount of oil available on our planet is finite. There's still plenty of debate about how much is left, but there's never been any indication that more oil is being produced inside the planet, at least not at a rate that's anywhere near what we use it at. Which means we are going to eventually need alternative fuels. (Assuming our rate of consumption doesn't decrease drastically.) That might be 10, 20, 50, 500 years in the future, but it *will* happen.
All that said, there's also no reason why we have to use fossil fuels to produce ethanol. It's just that fossil fuels are currently the cheapest energy source. That won't remain true forever: the cost of all renewable sources will only ever decrease, as technology improves.
Re:Just burn the fossil fuels (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea was to run stuff like tractors on hydrogen created from ethanol... :-)
Details (Score:5, Insightful)
So after liberating some (all) of the hydrogen we are left with C2 and O I would assume it would pick up O2 from the air and make C02 as a by product, with potentially some water also.
Last time I checked C02 was a greenhouse gas. It doesn't add to CO2 levels if (big if) the sources for ethanol production extract the CO2 from the atmosphere at the same rate. Keep in mind it isn't just the raw materials, but energy needed to process and create the ethanol, which may cause pollution in the process.
I would have expected CNN to give the actual chemical by-products, and not just summarize as "no greenhouse gasses" which is extremely misleading. I would also be interested to know how many of the H6 get truly extracted, and what remainder go into water (which would say something about efficiency and power density). Or whether some more exotic compounds are left behind that just C02 and H20 (even if only in trace amounts). A molecule here, a molecule there, and sometimes things aren't as benign as one might first assume.
Good news in any event, just wish there where more details.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not claiming that ethanol production is a wonder of modern science, but your argument is equally applicable to everything other than direct use of sunlight or geothermal energy, isn't it? As far as I know, wood, fossil fuels, and ethanol are all formed by processes that start with sunlight and proceed through a series of relatively inefficient reactions to store it in a usable form.
Science is a stepwise process; while this ethanol->hydrogen converter isn't a silver bullet for our energy problems, it's clearly a step in the right direction. Maybe the next step is to make the ethanol production process more efficient or to adapt the converter to work with methanol. The whole point is to make advances that, while they may not solve the whole problem at once, lay the groundwork for an eventual solution.
Re:Great, it only takes a gallon of fossil fuel... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:4, Insightful)
A Solar still takes very little knowledge, and no oil to build.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to know about this stuff...
Do you know if anyone has considered using wind or solar energy to power the ethanol producing equipment? Considering corn is farmed on lots of land with lots of wind and sun, it seems like this could help ethanol production become more viable.
Re:Not now..... (Score:3, Insightful)
So when it all boils down. The nice clean ethanol that was used to make the hydrogen that made the electricity was grown and processed with power from good ole' black dino juice.
Re:Ugh... (Score:4, Insightful)
I take it you've never sniffed the air downwind of a petrolium refinery or an oil well....
Re:What happens to the Carbon?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true only with respect to burning ethanol as a fuel in an internal combustion engine. This statement does not appear take into account the difference between an internal combustion engine and the conversion of ethanol to hydrogen to electricty to motive power.
You also are ignoring the fact that the ethanol can be produced using ethanol based energy. The tractor power, the distillation, the factory incidentals, the distribution, all of that energy could be provided by ethanol. That it isn't produced that way yet is due in large part to the lack of a widely available efficient ethanol conversion process.
The "hydrogen-based energy economy" has been hampered by the fact that hydrogen is not as easy to deliver as gasoline. However, ethanol is exactly as easy to deliver as gasoline, and the infrastruture already exists to do so. The problems with converting methanol or ethanol to hydrogen for fuel cells (the expense of the platinum catalysts) has been one of the final roadblocks to widespread adoption of fuel cell powered vehicles.
Crying "corn belt subsidy" before the technology even sees the light of day is counter-productive. Yes, some people are going to get filthy rich off of whatever fuel supplants oil. Unethical people will make financially-motivated decisions to use a "dirty" process and release lots of pollution. There will be more crooked deals with more crooked politicians, there will be kickbacks and porkbarrels the likes of which will relegate Haliburton and Cheney to the junior varsity level. Some oil industry barons will be ruined, many oil industry workers will lose their jobs, and the world will be changed. But it needs to change. The new direction may or may not be ethanol, but it can't remain fossil fuel based forever. And we need to explore those alternatives now.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't claim to know whether this is a net gain when all energy costs and byproducts (chiefly carbon dioxide) are taken into account, but don't dismiss the idea out of hand by spuriously equating it to the burning of purified ethanol.
Here's an article with a bit more information. [nature.com]. I found this link elsewhere in this discussion.
Inefficiency (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Read the fine print (Score:2, Insightful)
It takes about 30% more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol that one gets out of burning that same gallon of ethanol.
What's the equivalent numbers for gasoline and diesel?
please... (Score:5, Insightful)
the shift here is from using fossil fuels that take many years of pressure and heat to create, and mostly lie across oceans - to a fuel source that only takes bacteria, the sun, and a few weeks to create, and can be produced in abundance locally.
if
and the numbers for ethanol creation are referring to -engine-grade-ethanol- which must be (expensively) purified. the ethanol source for the reactor in question -doesn't-.
not to mention that the IOP article says that this ethanol->hydrogen reactor is 3x as efficient as an ethanol engine directly.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:5, Insightful)
(I'm a homebrewer going commercial)
Yeast will at best get a corn mash up to about 20% ABV (Alcohol by Volume) To get this any higher, you need to distill it which requires lots and lots of heat (look up the specific heat of water and remember that 80% of your mother liquor is water).
In addition to the alcohol, there are lots of other chemicals - I don't know but I would be pretty sure that some of them would need to be removed or they would corrupt the chemical reactions. I would not be surprised if this reactor didn't require a pretty pure ethanol.
Finally, given the poor efficiency of fuel-cells, you might be better off just burning the ethanol in a micro-turbine. These will run on anything and have nice numbers.
Re:Not now..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually they mention that burning hydrogen (or using it to power a fuel cell) may not release greenhouse gasses, but when you convert ethanol to hydrogen, the carbon in the ethanol has to go somewhere. Is it released as CO2? The article was too sketchy on details to know...
Crack smokers (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's from FTW: [fromthewilderness.com]
One conclusion generally accepted by almost every attendee was that hydrogen, contrary to popularly accepted comfort promotions by writers like Jeremy Rifkin, was not a solution either in the near or long term because of intensive costs of production, inherent energy inefficiencies, lack of infrastructure and impracticalities. Speaking for Daimler Chrysler, which paid lip service to Peak Oil yet acknowledged that it had done extensive research on hydrogen vehicles, Dr. Jorg Wind told the conference that his company did not see hydrogen as a viable alternative to petroleum-based internal combustion engines.
"We use fossil fuels to make hydrogen. That does not result in a significant CO2 reduction. We predict that by 2020 only 5% of fuel use will be hydrogen and that infrastructure and the political framework is the most important factor. In order of relevance and likelihood from the standpoint of the auto industry Wind stated that we would see improved conventional vehicles, starter hybrid vehicles, electric hybrid vehicles and, finally, fuel cell vehicles as solutions, but he had little optimism that fuel cells would ever amount to a significant market share. In a telling left-handed acknowledgement of Peak Oil, Wind noted that one third of all diesel fuels currently used in Germany were biodiesel relying on recycled waste and or plant feedstock. He was particularly critical of ethanol stating that it was not energy efficient.
French presenters confirmed that ethanol was only viable in France due to a three hundred per cent government subsidy to farmers. Otherwise it was a net energy waster.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course you are correct on this point.
However (you knew that was coming, right?), the point Cecil was probably trying to make was that the amount of energy we can harness effectively from the burning of ethanol is less than the amount of energy that went into making it. Add to that the waste in the process of creating ethanol (that process can't be 100% efficient, right?) and there is definitely a net loss. Because we can't harness all of the energy created from the burning of ethanol (light for instance), and the fact that the process which creates it is not perfect, it ends up costing more energy to produce than you get from burning it.
And I am fully aware that this is just a limitation in the current method of creating and burning ethanol. This procedure could be improved over time.
Taft
Re:Not now..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Burning oil, however, is putting us back to prehistoric CO2 levels.
Using power from our very own stellar fusion reactor located at a convenient approximate 18 light minutes, is much cleaner.
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems that this discovery is an improvement to the current method of extracting energy from ethanol. In most current applications, ethanol is burned to harness its energy. In the application described in the article, the ethanol is converted to hydrogen which is then turned into electricity.
So it seems the breakthrough here is probably a more efficient way of extracting energy from ethanol. That's gotta be a good thing.
Taft
Re:Not now..... (Score:5, Insightful)
cotodoso
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as market forces are not making it happen, there's no real reason to force it. (Certainly not for the environment's sake. Industrial agriculture makes the gas-burning automobile look like a field of lillies... and non-industrial agriculture could never provide the yeilds needed without plowing under all the rainforests and irrigating all the deserts of the world.)
Re:Ethanol (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think so - I would have sworn that although nobody's succeeded at turning lead into gold yet, they HAVE turned BISMUTH into gold. It only cost them a few billion dollars to build the particle accelerator to do it with, too. And they got, as I recall, 8 whole atoms of Gold in the process...
I'm in the wrong line of work - I should get in on that 'particle physics' scam. "Yes, senator, this $50,000,000,000 grant is absolutely necessary if I am to discover the Pineapple Upside-Down Quark before the Soviets, uh, I mean, Red Chinese, uh, I mean, Terrorists do!"
(Note for any humor impaired particle physicists and/or sympathisers reading this - YES, it's a joke! Jeez...)
Re:BRAVO! (Score:3, Insightful)
As to your suggestion I try farming some time, let me just say that there are ALREADY TOO MANY people TRYING to make a living farming - why would I be stupid enough to create a business that has no hope of succeding without government subsidy?
Why dont farmers who are being paid not to grow crops just get in to some other business? There are two primary reasons. 1) why work when i can get paid to do nothing? (great reason to get rid of the subsidies in the first place) and 2) My 'quality of life/lifestyle' will change - my family have always been farmers! (tough - the world changes and you need to too)
I hear complaints like "The farm has been in our family for generations and now because we can't compete with the 'big' industrial farms, we are in danger of loosing our way of life and our livelyhood!" To which I reply "Great - get out of farming, go get an education and do something ELSE. Tell your kids to get an education and do something else." I don't do what my fater did for a livng and it doesn't hurt me or him a bit. If big 'mechanized' farms are driving the little guy out of business then the little guy should go into business doing something else.
The reason we have all these subsidies is because there are too damn many farmers - if we stop paying them to do NOTHING with their land then perhaps they'd go do somehting else and actually contribute to society.
Energy Balance (Score:1, Insightful)
The point of all of this is to reduce emissions from the less efficient internal combustion engine. About 35% of the energy from burning fossil fuels in a car engine is available for mechanical energy. A full scale power plant is around 50-55% efficeint in converting fossil fuels into electricity, and the emissions are much, much less than for a car.
By using the more efficient energy on a large scale to produce ethanol, that is then used in vehicles may use a bit more energy, but it will greatly reduce emissions.
The laws of thermodynamics cannot be defeated (unfortunate as that is), but we can help limit emissions, and that is the goal of both fuel cells, and ethanol use for hydrogen.
As for use in homes, that is stupid except for people that live far from a power distribution network.
Re:$1 of profit of Ethanol maker costs Taxpayer $3 (Score:5, Insightful)
A more usefull number would be the ratio of revenue to subsidy. I couldn't find that in the report you linked, but assuming their profit margin is about 10%, then for every dollar I pay for ethanol another three dollars comes from the taxpayers.
the real reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
We need to be able to feed ourselves if things go bad... isolationist that we would rather be.
Non-renewable versus renewable (Score:2, Insightful)
And I'm sure there will be a point in time when the non-renewable sources (gasoline, diesel) will have too high of a cost-to-produce/profit-to-sell ratio, and the street price of 1g of ethanol will be cheaper than 1g of gasoline.
If, of course, the major oil companies don't patent all the technology (we do know how brilliant the patent office is...) and prevent anyone from developing the technology further.
Ethanol doesn't have to come from corn... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this miracle crop, you might ask?
This miracle crop scares our government, and numerous other larg-scale entities (such as various corporations), because of its multitude of uses, and the fact that it is so easy to grow. At one time, it was grown in plentiful amounts right here in the United States. Then a ban was induced in the early part of the twentieth century (but was lifted briefly for World War 2), and farmers couldn't grow it. Recently, products made from it came under our government's eye again - but the courts beat them back once more (of course, these products are made mostly in Canada, or from the crop grown in Canada). We, the people, are being denied access to growing this crop, and reaping its benefits, by our own government. A government started with a document entitled the "Declaration of Independence" - written on paper made from the very fibers of the crop denied to us today!
So, what is this wonderous crop, you plea?
Say it loud - say it proud - let the world and our corrupt politicians know it: HEMP! HEMP! HEMP!
Re:Not now..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not now..... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know how much corn would be needed to power everything. But I would bet that there is plenty enough energy falling on just a few hundred square miles to power all of our needs. It powers the weather and winds globally after all. It's just a matter of finding a way to collect the energy and then store it. I think storing the energy as hydrogen to be used in a fuel cell is a good way to go, whether you generate the hydrogen via corn or nuclear power.
Speaking of nuclear, I assume you are talking about fusion not generating tons of radioactive material? I'm all for fusion power and hope it becomes viable some day. But I don't think you'll see a fusion power plant in the trunk of everyone's car. I think the fusion power will have to be used to create an intermediate form. Power for electric cars? Hydrogen for fuel cell powered electric cars? Who knows?
I saw a good writeup the other day (probably on slashdot) about how we could change from an oil based economy to a hydrogen based economy. If the current oil companies were "encouraged" to be the producers and distributors of hydrogen as they are now for oil products, they wouldn't see it as a threat to their existence. Then they wouldn't be exerting their considerable political influence to try to stop alternate plans.
Just my $0.02 worth ($0.01 after tax)...
Re:Bio-diesel is NOT a reality (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you show me some sources? Biodiesel already is in the mass market. Many citys run it as B20 in their buses.
Essentially, there isn't enough refuse biomass for biodiesel.
Who said you only have to make biodiesel from refuse?
It'll work as long as a small amount of us use it
No one has ever suggest we switch to 100% biod. It can be just another part of the alternative energy mix. Going just 5% bio would mean a lot of cash that stays in the US and not going to Suadi Arabia.
Another two cents (Score:1, Insightful)
I think everyone could be missing the idea here; we all agree that there are much more efficient ways of producing hydrogen than synthesizing it from ethanol. The purpose behind this reactor is not to produce hydrogen from ethanol, but rather to serve as a converter of ethanol to hydrogen.
Hydrogen, in its liquid state, is extremely difficult to handle and to store. Ethanol on the other hand, is already in use as a fuel additive around the world, and can more or less be safely stored and transported using the existing gasoline infrastructure.
As I recall, there were also experiments in solar energy conducted in Israel years ago that focused on using solar furnaces to drive a chemical conversion process, rather than produce steam to run electric generators. The aim was to essentially "store" solar energy as chemical energy. More research in this area could lead to more efficient ways of producing ethanol.
-P.R.Deltoid, hailing from MacSlash.com
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:1, Insightful)
Producing ethanol requires nothing more than the sun, some corn, and bacteria. Yes, you'll notice that list includes an energy source, but not "oil".
Silly argument.
Getting from one place to another requires nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other untill you are there. Yes, you'll notice that ther is no need for "oil" in transportation.
Unless of course, you want it to scale.
The current practice of industrial ethanol production is powered by fossil fuels.
The idea that we can just use ethanol to power its own industrial scale production is untested at best. We might find that we consume all the ethanol before get any of it to consumer applications (which was, I believe, the original poster's point)
The idea that you seem to be hinting at, adopting farming techniques that do not depend on industrial methodologies, would never produce enough ethanol to create a viable market for ethanol power solutions. (chicken-egg thing)
Besides, if we abandoned the tractor we'd all be up to our elbows in horse shit. (Of course some people will be right at home)
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:2, Insightful)
> government would stop pouring hundreds of
> billions of dollars a year in to subsidizing
> the oil industry.
Re:How environmentally friendly is solar power? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Making Ethanol can be cheap! Read how here! PLE (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Potatoes (really good. soil-healthy crop)
2. Grapes
3. Wheat
4. Sugar Beets
5. Honey
6. Rye
7. Apples
8. Peaches
9. Oats
10. Several types of hardy grasses, including milkweed, dandelions, cattails.
The list goes on. What's more, there's a surplus of all these every year. Regularly, crops simply get dumped into the ocean to mitigate price drops caused by low supply/demand ratio. We already farm too well. What if farmers could sell their entire surplus, every year? The revival of agriculture as a way of life. Even the >gasp small-farm -- remember what I said about local farming being a better way to produce energy because you don't have to ship it?!
Re:Making ethanol uses fossil fuels (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, I'm pretty sure that most of my dad's cousins still have an "ethanol plant" hidden back behind the barn.
what you'll make your fertilizer from
spent mash, corn waste, hay. Feed it to the "fertilizer plant", get bacon whenever you "upgrade" the factory.
how you'll get your ethanol to your hydrogen plant all without using any fossil fuels...
RTFA. The unit does that for you.
Ethanol can be produced from agricultural by-products as well (such as corn-cobs and stalks, rice [mindfully.org] and wheat [senate.gov] straw, etc.), not just whole grain. Alongside renewable natural gas [go.com], this technology could reduce farm waste and agicultural surplus problems, reduce America's dependance on fossil fuels, help balance the trade deficit, and help family owned farms stay in business while reducing the cost of energy for the end user. All good things, IMHO.
A lot of people will be crying at the demise of the oil import giants, but I am certainly not one of them.
Re:Not now..... (Score:2, Insightful)
It got disappeared.
The engine didn't have the same detonation problems that typical piston internal combustion engines have.
It got disappeared.
Thanks Ford.
Re:Not now..... (Score:1, Insightful)
lack of fuel is not the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Right now affective PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cells require two elements that are expensive and hard to maintain. First the solid state acid or Nafion 112 (by Dupont) is very fragile and hard to manipulate, and second the catalyst MADE OF PLATINUM (bling bling) is too damn expensive. Currently both of these issues are trying to be resolved, mainly developing a nano-ceramic catalyst or the other option an enzymatic catalyst. Both of these once perfected would be cheap and increase efficiency. For now we have no reason to be getting excited over this excess hydrogen.
Wrong question (Score:3, Insightful)
Erm... surely the real question is: Why do you still grow all this corn in the first place?
Do you people realize what this means? (Score:5, Insightful)
A compact ethanol to hydrogen reformer means that at least two of the the LARGEST problems stopping the adoption of hydrogen have been solved
1) Transportation:
The existing gasoline transport/storage/dissemination architecture can be used for ethanol
2) Net production of CO2
Until now, the cheapest ways to produce hydrogen have relized on fossil fuel consumption. Now hydrogen can be derived from biomass.
To everyone who complains about ethanol subsidies: corn is NOT the only way to make ethanol. You could probably find a way to ferment whatever is fastest growing--after all, this is not for human consumption.
In summary, I hope this thing is for real...
To put it another way... (Score:2, Insightful)
According to one fairly rough, recent estimate [utah.edu], each gallon of gas in your car required ninety-eight tons of prehistoric plants over millions of years to create. Talk about redefining "fuel efficiency," this is something that will eventually come into play should global oil reserves hit the downward slope of output that will inevitably come, unless we figure out a way to rush-fossilize a few hundred billion tons of plants per year into new fossil fuel reserves. Considering the total amount of plant biomass on Earth, suddenly that inefficient ethanol car or unreliable wind generator may be ultimately worth the drastic lifestyle change. Hell, it may be eventually necessary to maintain any kind of lifestyle involving advanced technology at all.
Put it this way--barring a freak discovery of nearly unlimited, accessible hydrocarbon reserves and a way to use them without causing more damage to the global environment, the end of the fossil-fuel civilization is an eventual certainty. What comes after it depends on what we do, or fail to do, to prepare for it. This is not fearmongering, it is realism of the most critical sort. After all, we still have to live here for the next few hundred years at least.
Re:That number (1.2KWh/day) is for Switzerland (Score:3, Insightful)