Sadiq Khan has gone too far,

[Diggs]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

Crop production will always bring some kind of waste to deal with in the form of the parts we can't eat, and after consumption there will be sewage.

Your transport scenario would only work if there was a large decline in the population back to 19th Century levels, reducing demand. (I hope I haven't just opened the door to someone's favourite subject... )

[Diggs]

Again, its chicken and egg. Think about how much oil we use as a nation today - not just internally but for importing goods also. The beauty of oil is that we extract it from the ground with minimal cost to the environment during the extraction process. Replace this with biofuel and the environmental cost of generating the same amount of energy is catastrophic in terms of land usage and the opportunity cost in terms of the inability to feed ourselves is so large that our population levels will have to 'balance out'.

The one thing you can guarantee is that our population won't grow as a result....

Likewise, I hope I haven't opened the door to a rant about immigration.
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Now - Speed Triple, old ratty GS550, GSXR750M
Gone (in order of ownership) - Raleigh Runabout, AP50, KH125, GP125, KH250, CBX550, Z400, CB750FII, 250LC, GS550, ZXR750H1, Guzzi Targa, GSX750F, KH250 x2, Bimota SB6R and counting...

[Sister Sledge]

I'll come in at an angle on this one..

I hate waste. Waste to me is expensive and destroying not just where it originated but also where it's dumped.

One good example is plastic. It's topical because it's everywhere now. We can use old plastics.
I'm serious here: The UK has a waste problem. We have thousands of old rubbish tips dating back centuries. Modern ones are the worst - hundreds of thousands of tons of plastics dumped into them.
My idea is we reopen old landfill sites. We reprocess them for useful materials - metals and plastics for example.
Plastics can be placed into massive sealed vats and boiled. The gas coming off can be processed into key components and reused in fuel and plastics production. The remnants are minuscule and could well have a use.

A lot of more recent landfill sites are still decomposing and providing methane for energy generation but once decomposition ends they should be opened up.
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CCM 404 DS

[Diggs]

[Polarbear]

[Diggs]

...and I bet you didn't read it as a result!
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Now - Speed Triple, old ratty GS550, GSXR750M
Gone (in order of ownership) - Raleigh Runabout, AP50, KH125, GP125, KH250, CBX550, Z400, CB750FII, 250LC, GS550, ZXR750H1, Guzzi Targa, GSX750F, KH250 x2, Bimota SB6R and counting...

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

[Sister Sledge]

It's a fascinating subject and yes something I feel so passionately about. When you look into the UKs overuse of methane and why, you discover where it all started and what it replaced. As I said it's a good topic and something I feel we can fix - and I'm definitely no friend of the Earth and all that crap..
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CCM 404 DS

[Diggs]

Its all good, but in order for our lives to not alter dramatically we need these fuel supplies to come on line in massive amounts as we stop using oil from the ground. So far this isn't happening - look at the Audi article for investment stats, for example.

Ignoring plastics for the time being, all these fuels require land and the only way we can produce the amount of fuel we currently use will be to devote more land to growing crops than we currently do. It may sound a tad dramatic, but as a planet we'd have more of a chance if we all went vegan....

What I'd love to see is somebody who really knows their shit (scuse pun), to describe how much land we will need to provide an equivelent amount of fuel to that which we use today, given the potential emergence of these new technologies. I haven't seen this calculation, and I suspect the reason why is that the future it would paint isn't good...

No, our only option is to use less fuel, which means a restructure of the global economy imo.
____________________
Now - Speed Triple, old ratty GS550, GSXR750M
Gone (in order of ownership) - Raleigh Runabout, AP50, KH125, GP125, KH250, CBX550, Z400, CB750FII, 250LC, GS550, ZXR750H1, Guzzi Targa, GSX750F, KH250 x2, Bimota SB6R and counting...

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[M.C]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

[-]

[Diggs]

I understand what you say, but think about it a different way. Imagine a typical crop plant. Currently 50% of its mass goes for food and 50% goes back into the ground. Now imagine if we use the bits we don't eat for biofuel. What goes back into the ground to bind the soil and to ensure enough nitrogen, phosphates etc for the next crop? This is why we end up with dustbowls where nothing of value can grow.

Similarly with sewage, in order to create the sewage we need to grow the food to eat. In order to grow the food we need to chose what we use our finite arable land for, and if we chose to use crop 'waste' for fuel then ultimately we lose the land for the reason described above.

I'm not suggesting that we will all be driving horses and carts in 5 years time, far from it. What I am suggesting is that unless we discover a 'magic' source of sustainable, transportable energy before oil becomes too expensive to extract then lots of us will be walking.
____________________
Now - Speed Triple, old ratty GS550, GSXR750M
Gone (in order of ownership) - Raleigh Runabout, AP50, KH125, GP125, KH250, CBX550, Z400, CB750FII, 250LC, GS550, ZXR750H1, Guzzi Targa, GSX750F, KH250 x2, Bimota SB6R and counting...

[Diggs]

Constructive, informed comment there Mdma as usual. Every day is a school-day with you around....
____________________
Now - Speed Triple, old ratty GS550, GSXR750M
Gone (in order of ownership) - Raleigh Runabout, AP50, KH125, GP125, KH250, CBX550, Z400, CB750FII, 250LC, GS550, ZXR750H1, Guzzi Targa, GSX750F, KH250 x2, Bimota SB6R and counting...

[Polarbear]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

[Sister Sledge]

I keep saying it - coal is our fuel of the future. It's such a versatile energy source. Yeah yeah not green and that but it's in abundance beneath us.

Soil binders: Winter greens/green manure. It's plants with mega fibrous root systems and come Spring is simply ploughed into the soil before planting a crop. It's awesome stuff.
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CCM 404 DS

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

I hope we'll stop using fossil fuels to power vehicles long before the oil runs out. As oil becomes scarcer we'll reserve it for use as a chemical feedstock for things like medicines. Burning the increasingly precious resource will begin to look like madness.

[M.C]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

I thought one of the problems with coal* (and oil) was that whilst it may still be abundant it was increasingly hard to reach, and it would be very difficult to reopen closed mines.

*Also, the unions.

[-]

[Jewlio Rides Again LLB]

Fucking hell, he knows everything about everything, doesn't he?
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Mpd72: I can categorically say i’m Brighter than that, no matter how I come across on here.
HAHAHA HAHAHA Blew Chilly MyCrowSystems

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