Pipeline protesters back

[CapitalB]

The only reason a lot of stuff is petroleum based is because hemp has never been utilized,
.

He's actually right. As a biofuel (basically biodiesel) you can get more fuel per acre than any other plant. You can also make a wide array of biodegradable plastics out of it. Its shortfalls however are that I believe it hasn't yet been made transparent, a lot of the current plastic manufacturing process' would need some degree of retooling, and it probably has a number of cost related factors that make it generally undesirable for companies to switch over willingly.

Personally I think using it selectively for some plastic uses would be great. Bags, beer rings, and other types of plastic that are generally just floating around would be perfect, other items that you do want to not degrade over a few decades like most consumer electronics can continue using the current plastics.

This however would have the downside of fragmenting the plastic production industry but that may be a price we have to pay. Regardless of what your standpoint is the amount of plastic floating around the planet is kind of terrible. Even from a wasted resource point of view, thats money down the drain.

[The Green Barbarian]

Then again a man who supports a leader who is not on the side of science cant be expected to align himself with real science, good luck getting your car to run on seawater when reserves dry up in 50 years.

LOL - you need to broaden your horizons outside of reading Desmog and RAN propaganda. I always laugh when enviro-nuts talk about "Real science" - you mean "science that is paid for by the Tides Foundation that supports my confirmation bias".

[The Green Barbarian]

He's actually right.

He's actually not.

As a biofuel (basically biodiesel) you can get more fuel per acre than any other plant. .

So what? How much energy do you have to expend (mostly from petroleum products) to create the bio-fuel in the first place? It's a total scam.

[Brass Monkey]

He's actually right.

He's actually not.

As a biofuel (basically biodiesel) you can get more fuel per acre than any other plant. .

So what? How much energy do you have to expend (mostly from petroleum products) to create the bio-fuel in the first place? It's a total scam.

How much energy to we commit to cleaning up spills, cleaning plastics from our oceans, dealing with emissions regulations? Petroleum plastic is by far one of the most polluting industry and environmentally affective process out there. We as humans have accumulated so much non-biodegradable plastic in the ocean that there is a garbage patch in the pacific that will soon overtake the state of Texas in terms of size. The oil industry has only been alive and well for less than 200 years (on an industrial level) yet it has polluted the planet more than any other industry over thousands of years. The gulf spill in Mexico alone was considered one of the most egregious attacks on planet earth in human history. Call me a hypocrite for being anti-pipeline while driving myself to work but at least I am not the one rallying against those who fight for a cleaner Earth, nobody loses with a cleaner Earth.

[CapitalB]

So what? How much energy do you have to expend (mostly from petroleum products) to create the bio-fuel in the first place? It's a total scam.

I believe its actually a fermentation process, they basically just turn it into ethanol alcohol in a process similar to making gin (kinda).

The plastic thing is basically just using the cellulose from the hemp plant and pressing it into shapes. Though it does sound (from some research) that its molecular composition is pretty similar to rayon and when bathed in a couple of different industrial chemicals (an alkali solution and sulphuric acid) they are able to make it into cellophane.

I mean technically right is right when the facts are correct. Is it a viable replacement? No, not now anyway, probably not for a decade. Is it worth looking into replacements anyway? Yeah probably, eventually we'll run out of oil. Sure theres probably a lot of it hidden in pockets around the planet but we use more each year than the year before so who knows how many decades that'll last. Who wants to do a mad scramble at the last minute.

[The Green Barbarian]

How much energy to we commit to cleaning up spills, cleaning plastics from our oceans, dealing with emissions regulations? .

Not as much as trying to survive on hemp. This is such a ridiculous argument, that only the most gullible would buy into. What it really takes is a willingness to completely not understand basic math, and instead just case all of your arguments on raw brainless emotion. And that fuels every single enviro-lunatic - emotion over facts and math. Every time. Which is why you have 8 losers with a stupid sign stopping hundreds of men and women from working and feeding their families.

[The Green Barbarian]

I mean technically right is right when the facts are correct. Is it a viable replacement? No, not now anyway, probably not for a decade. Is it worth looking into replacements anyway? Yeah probably, eventually we'll run out of oil. Sure theres probably a lot of it hidden in pockets around the planet but we use more each year than the year before so who knows how many decades that'll last. Who wants to do a mad scramble at the last minute.

yeah, a mad scramble back to paper bags. Look out world. :)

I'm just funning with you. I don't mind looking into replacement stuff. If people want the product, then there will be a market for it for sure.

[Brass Monkey]

How much energy to we commit to cleaning up spills, cleaning plastics from our oceans, dealing with emissions regulations? .

Not as much as trying to survive on hemp. This is such a ridiculous argument, that only the most gullible would buy into. What it really takes is a willingness to completely not understand basic math, and instead just case all of your arguments on raw brainless emotion. And that fuels every single enviro-lunatic - emotion over facts and math. Every time. Which is why you have 8 losers with a stupid sign stopping hundreds of men and women from working and feeding their families.

You would also call someone gullible for believing that enough solar energy hits the earth in 1 hour to power all of humanity for a year. Men like Elon Musk are building 762hp all-electric sports cars that outrun 6.0L corvettes and camaros, the fastest train system in the world is chinas all electric Fuxing system. The future is not petroleum. Petroleum is a dying industry and unfortunately men like yourself will only call it quits when its all gone.

[The Green Barbarian]

You would also call someone gullible for believing that enough solar energy hits the earth in 1 hour to power all of humanity for a year. .

insane would be more the word I would use.

[CapitalB]

You would also call someone gullible for believing that enough solar energy hits the earth in 1 hour to power all of humanity for a year. Men like Elon Musk are building 762hp all-electric sports cars that outrun 6.0L corvettes and camaros, the fastest train system in the world is chinas all electric Fuxing system. The future is not petroleum. Petroleum is a dying industry and unfortunately men like yourself will only call it quits when its all gone.

Things are absolutely going electric, I think that despite these huge advancements though its going to continue to be pretty gradual.

One big hurdle keeping the switch over from happening quickly is that current battery tech and solar tech uses incredibly rare materials, and the process to manufacture both are also pretty harsh from an industrial waste perspective. Which is why currently a lot of the manufacturing of these is happening in china with their negligible environmental protection laws. Personally I'm all for the world switching over to renewables, however we have to be aware of the costs of that which often in a globalized industrial world can be rendered invisible by distance.

Plus there are so many 20+ year old cars on the road today that we'll probably keep seeing petrol vehicles on the road for at least a couple decades to come. The only way around that would be an unprecedented level of investment from the government into conversion and emv subsidies. Realistically though we'll probably end up with a majority of hybrid electric vehicles going into the 2020s, they'll also likely all be level 3+ automated driving but thats a debate for a different thread.

[lesliepaul]

It was actually a train with munitions to be loaded on a ship headed for Central America. Brain Willson lost both legs at Concord Naval Station Sept 1 1987. No sympathy for him back then or now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Willson

JagXKR............I believe you are correct on the event. I will always remember the looks on the bystanders and supporters faces. Reminded me of the movie Slapshot when the Chiefs bus is rolling into a town for their next game and all the townsfolk are standing with signs protesting the Chiefs and as the bus rolls by everyone on the bus are "mooning" them. That took the wind out of their sails!

[JagXKR]

You would also call someone gullible for believing that enough solar energy hits the earth in 1 hour to power all of humanity for a year. Men like Elon Musk are building 762hp all-electric sports cars that outrun 6.0L corvettes and camaros, the fastest train system in the world is chinas all electric Fuxing system. The future is not petroleum. Petroleum is a dying industry and unfortunately men like yourself will only call it quits when its all gone.

Until the golf cart runs out of electricity and has to charge for a few hours, meanwhile the Corvette is at it's destination with the driver having a cold one and waiting for the eco nut to show up.
The future is not electricity but hydrogen. Not the near future but the few or more decades future. Just as the CFL bulb was just a stop gap measure until LED technology was developed. The CFL is basically dead. But the eco nuts of the day touted it's power savings as the future. Nope wrong again eco nuts.
BTW most plastic in the USA is made from natural gas not oil. It is the other way up here in the Great White North. And guess what we have more than enough of? NG. Centuries worth of NG.

[JagXKR]

JagXKR............I believe you are correct on the event. I will always remember the looks on the bystanders and supporters faces. Reminded me of the movie Slapshot when the Chiefs bus is rolling into a town for their next game and all the townsfolk are standing with signs protesting the Chiefs and as the bus rolls by everyone on the bus are "mooning" them. That took the wind out of their sails!

This was one of the easiest things I've ever looked up because I remember seeing it on the news the day after it happened.

Eco terrorists, eco nuts, "activists" are all the same to me. None of them will ever be my friend nor will I respect anything they say or do. Horrible people with myopic stupidity as their dogma. But the media has an orgasm every time they set up one of their lunatic protests.

[CapitalB]

Until the golf cart runs out of electricity and has to charge for a few hours, meanwhile the Corvette is at it's destination with the driver having a cold one and waiting for the eco nut to show up.
The future is not electricity but hydrogen. Not the near future but the few or more decades future. Just as the CFL bulb was just a stop gap measure until LED technology was developed. The CFL is basically dead. But the eco nuts of the day touted it's power savings as the future. Nope wrong again eco nuts.
BTW most plastic in the USA is made from natural gas not oil. It is the other way up here in the Great White North. And guess what we have more than enough of? NG. Centuries worth of NG.

They already have battery tech for under ten minute charges, and the travel time gap is closing fast. Besides we'll see how much fun the corvette is having in five years when gas is at least twice what it is now.

Also any tech predictions that go beyond five years are silly, after that point the likeliness of some new unheard of thing coming out of nowhere and blowing everyone away is too high.

[hobbyguy]

Good grief, replace oil with hemp?

According to this: https://www.slideshare.net/DavidHaroldMoore/hemp-farming

300 gallons per acre = 7 barrels of hemp oil per acre. The US alone consumes 7,000,000,000 barrels of oil every year. So you need 1 billion acres of land based on single cropping - and that's assuming NO inputs to grow/harvest the hemp. The US has about 470 million acres of arable land.

Then look at the price. $9,000/7 = $1,285 USD per barrel.

Not that I don't agree that we need to move away from petroleum products - plastics included.

- Electric cars where feasible (I still think the Chevy Volt is an excellent concept going forward).
- Lots of commuter mass transit (which we can only pay for by selling oil/bitumen/copper etc.).
- Lots of gen III nuclear plants
- Get rid of consumerism. Products to meet minimum useful life standards.
- Reduce air travel.
- Increase train travel.
- Substantially, 95%?, reduce plastic packaging, single use items like cups.
- Put a significant Pigovian tax on bottled water.
- Invest in more energy dense batteries, like developing Al-ion batteries.

The reality is, we need to use less, and what we buy has to last longer.