Smithsonian scientists highlight environmental impacts of biofuels

More agenda driven non-science. It's easy to prove what you set out to prove instead of actually employing subject neutral testing. Like the old adage says "Figures never lie but liars sure know how to figure."

I have to say, biofuels looked bad in the beginning (i.e. 5 years ago), and they still look bad now. My reasons for disliking them:

1. They are essentially the same old technology, meaning that they probably won't spur the major development of any really useful technologies.

2. They offer a strongly constrained benefit in terms of the environment, if they prove beneficial at all. To produce them you need HUGE amounts of plants (which require land), a very efficient conversion system, and a very efficient delivery system. And, in the end, just how clean are they?

3. Are they being used as an excuse for governments to spend less money, rather than actually take the time to develop a better, electricity based technology?

4. They are another reason for the government to ignore our failing power grid... Remember the east coast blackout? Shifting fuel to the power grid would force them to finally upgrade it into the modern world.

Honestly, we should be using solar power. Even if they cost a lot right now, it would create the necessary infrastructure for later upgrades, and a lot of scientists would move into the electricity sector, increasing the rate of advancement.

Call it an investment in the future.

-Axemaster

If we had the technology for decent, cheap, environmentally friendly solar cells then I'd agree axemaster. But we don't. Our current generation of solar cells is no different than biofuels. It costs about as much in fossil fuels to manufacture and maintain than you get out of it in the end. In 50 years, sure, solar power will be important. But until we have REAL solar cells and not the crap on the market right now there is no point to it.

Besides.... solar means batteries. When is the last time you saw an even halfway decent battery? Oh yeah, that's right. Never. Cause they haven't been invented yet and they aren't even on the distant horizon (unless we make one of those neat accidental discoveries:)). We can't have real electric cars because we don't have real batteries. Our current low density garbage just isn't up to the task. Even the best Li-ion batteries have far, far, far to low an energy density and lifespan to be truly useful for this kind of thing. And they are expensive to boot. I guess you could just have bank after bank of Lead Acid batteries. And then we could all die from the toxins they release after they are completely replaced and tossed in a trash heap every 10 years:). Niiiice. Sign me up for that sweet solar!

But just like you I don't understand the lack of research funds being committed by governments. WTH is wrong with them? Even though we don't currently have the tech for decent solar power we'll never GET that tech without dumping at least a bit of money into R&D.

A very valid arguement. My point is that I don't feel like the gov is planning to R&D solar very much at all. I agree with the battery problem, but keep in mind that there are other ways of storing large amounts of energy. Methods that come to mind include gas pressurization (which is already in use - very efficient and very high capacity), and the "pump" method, which involves pumping water up to the top of a hill for potential energy.

I don't imagine that we will ever completely switch to solar and wind, so regardless, we could always cover any gaps using existing power plants.

I know this sounds like wishful thinking, but eventually we will have stable fusion - it's inevitable. Ah, no more nuclear waste! And remember, nuclear is the biggest energy source out there, solar and wind are just using the trickledown.

-Axemaster

I'm afraid we won't be able to make significant progress towards producing biofuels efficiently before we can produce solar energy efficiently. The problem with that is that efficient solar energy is probably a ways off and we've got nothing in the meantime. What's even more sad is that fusion power, which will probably be the ultimate winner in our energy consumption, is even farther off than solar.

The point is, no matter where we think we're getting our energy from, it's all coming from the sun. We just have to find the most efficient and eco-friendly way to harness it.

Biofuels are a huge scam. The price of corn has doubled in a few years, and therefore milk, beef, poultry and a host of other industries are also seeing record increase in the cost of their commodities. Global warming wackos in league with big agro-business, strange bedfellows, but true. Meanwhile, real people around the world suffer and cannot afford to buy food due to the skyrocketing rates, so western guilt can be assuaged with another meaningless gesture that will not actually benefit the environment at all...

I actually agree axemaster. There is some limited energy storage capacity that could be used for such things that exists today using, among others, the methods you mentioned. I'm hoping increased storage capacity will benefit wind power moreso than solar. Wind is cheap, efficient, clean, and 30% reliable:). The reliability part is the only problem with it, and a decent energy storage system would fix that.

And yay for fusion! Ashibayai: In most cases we do get our energy from the sun, but there are a few exceptions.

1) Tidal Power: Not hydro, that's different even though the capture proccess is similar. Unlike hydro, which is solar powered and gravitationally transferred (water running downhill and all that), tidal is wholly powered by gravity. Sweeeeet!

2) Geothermal: This is partially powered by the gravitational compression of Earth's centre regions, residual heat from the initial formation of Earth (which is the same thing I suppose), and partly by radioactive decay.

Everything else ultimately comes from our astronomically large naturally occurring neighbourhood stellar fusion reactor!

Technically tidal power is given to us by the gravitational interactions of our heavenly bodies, all of which received their initial kinetic energies from our protoplanetary disc, as a result of the formation of the sun.

And Geothermal energy is only possible because of the more massive elements that were created by a previous sun and formed into the earth, once again, by the protoplanetary disc.

Although I will give you that these energies aren't created by energy currently emanating from the sun, which would seem the most obvious way of referring to solar energy.