Red Light Cameras Can Be a Good ThingMaybe in generating revenue. How long after you run the first RL do you get notification of the violation? A person can run several RLs in one day,before getting notice...
specimens of humanity Part IMy brother driving home had the car die on him- the check engine light had come on for a few minutes and the engine was "missing" occasionally. I was a pbuttenger. He...
The problem with ethanol is twofold: ethanol is corrosive and requires nickel plating of the fuel injection system to run high ethanol blends (as well a computer and sensor to detect ethanol levels and adjust spark timing). And corn alcohol distillation is not a very efficient way to make it. Bio-engineered e-coli bacteria eating cellulose would be much more efficient, but then you run into environmentalists oppossing bio-engineering.
I'm interested in biodiesel (and diesel in general), and it has similar problems. Currently, soy oil is the big psuh for biodiesel, but soy oil was mostly a waste product- now the price has shot up because China started demanding raw soybeans. Jatropha, avocado, or palm have much, much higher yields of oil per acre than soybeans. And again, it's even possible to bio-engineer algae that would grow in sewage waste and produce oil. Currently the big problem for biodiesel is getting it up to standards- engine manufacturers are not going to warranty some small time operation that makes a fuel from waste grease, using poor methods, that results in poorly reacted biodiesel that is contaminated with free fatty acids, water, glycerin, or catalysts. That stuff will kill diesel fuel injection systems. So that's why you are seeing most diesel engine mfg's and auto companies only warranting 5 percent biodiesel blends. Now, a good continuous batch or two-stage reaction process (or even one stage- as long as the oil is reasonable) can produce good fuel ,but standards have to be met.
Thermal depolymerization (which produces a fuel similar to petroleum diesel) is another technology that could be exploited, but currently there's only one plant in the US. The owner wanted to get waste turkey-chicken guts for free from poultry companies, but he was banking on the practice of feeding poultry to other animals being outlawed due to BSE (thus making poultry waste worthless). That didn't happen, and he has to buy the poultry guts, cutting into his profits. Of course, you could also turn computers, plastic trash bags, sewage, etc., into fuel, but you get into the NIMBY stuff- basicly nobody wants it in their backyard.
