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Old August 29th 05, 08:18 PM
Andre
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Default bio-diesel hybrid future


"Rod" wrote in message
...
Right on, Bob. It has been said that the energy required to produce a

solar
cell is greater than the energy it is likely to produce in its life.
Bummer.

A similar argument can be made about bio-fuels. The energy required to
plant, cultivate, harvest and distil is greater than the resulting energy
produced.

Rod


The one problem with this statement is that it is usually based on existing
technology. If the tractors, trucks, etc. used to plant, cultivate and
harvest the fuel were to use bio-diesel instead of regular diesel then the
use of petrolium based fuel for production of bio-diesel would go down.

Also, depending on the type of crop harvested might have something to do
with it as was mentioned earlier.

A third aspect is that we can reuse oil used for something else. For
example, vegetable oil used for cooking can be resued, so it serves double
duty. The waste solids can still be used for soap so serving triple duty.

Andre