Obviously I don't know if you're monitoring this thread anymore, but I have wanted to follow up. I did a little bit of reading over the weekend, and learned just enough to realize that the impact of biodiesel is difficult to quantify. There is an argument that it is carbon-neutral, but there are other greenhouse gases produced. Assuming carbon-neutrality for the moment and ignoring the energy input that's required to process the hemp into biodiesel, I wanted to see if it could scale up for grid-level use. Most of my numbers are from Wikipedia (I'm trying to show my work so anyone can correct me or compare with more reliable data).
Production of hemp: 300 kg/haEnergy in biodiesel: ~38 MJ/kg (1 MJ = 280 W-hr)So I get about 3 MW-hr produced from 1 ha.
Electricity consumption in the US is apparently 4000 TW-hr annually, so we would need 1 billion ha of hemp production, compared to 150 million ha of arable land.
I get similar numbers for replacing gasoline use in the US.
I'm always ready to make dumb math errors, but as near as I can tell, hemp or other biodiesel is not going to be capable to supply grid-scale, carbon-neutral energy. Not without massive cuts to energy consumption.
Perhaps there's a role in displacing even a fraction of electricity/gasoline supply.
For what it's worth, I appreciate the conversation and the opportunity to learn from you. I hope your seminar goes well.
Hey thanks for the update! Did you factor in existing and future solar and wind production into the equation? But yes, we're going to need massive cuts in consumption any way we cut it. And that requires technological development on a scale that we've only seen during WW2. And that requires a coherent government policy other than "Fuck climate change and let's melt the Arctic."
Let's take this offline and continue the convo because it's important and I appreciate talking to someone who gets it. My contact info is on my website: Look up Amoredesignwerks. Cheers
Obviously I don't know if you're monitoring this thread anymore, but I have wanted to follow up. I did a little bit of reading over the weekend, and learned just enough to realize that the impact of biodiesel is difficult to quantify. There is an argument that it is carbon-neutral, but there are other greenhouse gases produced. Assuming carbon-neutrality for the moment and ignoring the energy input that's required to process the hemp into biodiesel, I wanted to see if it could scale up for grid-level use. Most of my numbers are from Wikipedia (I'm trying to show my work so anyone can correct me or compare with more reliable data).
Production of hemp: 300 kg/haEnergy in biodiesel: ~38 MJ/kg (1 MJ = 280 W-hr)So I get about 3 MW-hr produced from 1 ha.
Electricity consumption in the US is apparently 4000 TW-hr annually, so we would need 1 billion ha of hemp production, compared to 150 million ha of arable land.
I get similar numbers for replacing gasoline use in the US.
I'm always ready to make dumb math errors, but as near as I can tell, hemp or other biodiesel is not going to be capable to supply grid-scale, carbon-neutral energy. Not without massive cuts to energy consumption.
Perhaps there's a role in displacing even a fraction of electricity/gasoline supply.
For what it's worth, I appreciate the conversation and the opportunity to learn from you. I hope your seminar goes well.
Hey thanks for the update! Did you factor in existing and future solar and wind production into the equation? But yes, we're going to need massive cuts in consumption any way we cut it. And that requires technological development on a scale that we've only seen during WW2. And that requires a coherent government policy other than "Fuck climate change and let's melt the Arctic."
Let's take this offline and continue the convo because it's important and I appreciate talking to someone who gets it. My contact info is on my website: Look up Amoredesignwerks. Cheers