Categories: uncategorized
Date: 25 October 2005 09:30:47
This green business is starting to get seriously out of hand. When will it stop?
Having read the report that Sweden is beginning to use cow entrails to make biogas to power trains and cars I began to pull myself together. I checked the date.... not 1st April. I checked other sources than the BBC and found that this was actually true.
Then I began thinking.....
Can vegetarians use this sort of fuel? Would they prefer to pollute the world with CO2 or sulphur than use a more enviromentally friendly alternative?
Does this form of fuel production fall into line with Christian beliefs on the stewardship of God's creation?
Now I love meat as much as the next omnivore and see this as the perfect way of ensuring that all the waste products are used up. Then I thought.... "Is it only cows that can be used like this?"
After consulting a few online sites I discovered that it looks like they are the best source of the methane extracted for the product. Now I know I'm no engineer; after all, I have a life and do not have a pressing need to keep my pens neatly lined up in my shirt pockets, but surely we could expand on this method of production.
Maybe we could genetically engineer animals to produce more methane. Can we feed cows on things other than grass? Could we add beaked beans to their diet? What about sprouts and fried onions?
Each cow can produce enough methane to run a train for 2.5 miles. The entire bus fleet, of 65 vehicles, in Linkoping is powered by biogas and Saab have released a 95 series car that can use it.
They also produce bioethanol from Brazillian sugar beet. Why Brazillian? Can't European sugar beet be used instead. Think of it... All that excess sugar that is made from EU beet and dumped at below market rates could be put to much better use. We could help the Third World farmers sell their cane sugar to us and we use bioethanol to run our cars. Carbon neutral fuel production.
Then I thought... is there anyway to harness all that methane produced by politicians? After all 98% of what they say is bull by product, surely we could harness this resource as well.
Now, after all this thinking I need to take a serious lie down to recover. Maybe I'll start designing an aircraft engine that runs on bioethanol or methane and fly off to the Carribbean for a rest amidst the hurricane damage.