extracting power from plants?

[Koen1]

Well idk... If you manage to extract electricity directly from them,
then yes.
If you're just going to produce biodiesel, then perhaps.
But it's not really the direction I intended for this thread...

[triffid]

Sorry I took your thread off course a little.I wasn't even interested in biodiesel until I saw the algae article last week.Before last week they always talked about making it from  plants I don't grow or can't grow.It turns out that I have been unaware of about 20 years of research in this area.triffid

[infringer]

Orange and Grapfruit trees might prove fruitful I hear the orange trees smell just like oranges...

What about making pulp from the peels of these fruits including lemons and limes I'm sure you could generate electricity with waste products.

Maybe in colder area's it may be logical to use pine type trees.

I only have one argument.

Over the period of the trees life you may not be able to generate nearly as much energy as you could by burning the tree and using steam turbines...

I have tons of ideas in my mind lately and have not settled in a particular area of testing as of yet I am just far to curious and look for a solid source of power that is cheap and easy to build.

[Koen1]

Didn't several ecologists internationally point out, only recently,
that large scale biodiesel is not the solution for the energy crisis?

I distinctly recall entire articles in various magazines and newspapers that
(finally) gave a fairly clear overview of the relatively high fuel consumption
and maintenance costs of the massive harvesting equipment that would
be needed (meaning: relatively low cost-effectiveness and ultimate fuel yield)
and the substantial negative effects on agricultural land availability,
food prices, and water use (and of course related to that increased water
processing and use).
Of course, for some silly reason most of the worlds governments are still
focusing on using foodcrops like corn, wheat, linseed, etc and most of
those articles commented on that, which everyone can see is not really
a super idea.
Your mention of algea is indeed interesting in that respect, as it may indeed
be a really good way to produce lots of biomass without messing up the
foodprices and land use, etc.
But we'd still be dependant on combustion fuel and we'd still be pumping
tons of CO2 into the air, so although it may be a short term solution to the
rising oil prices, it is not a solution for the global warming thing...

If we're going to stick to combustion, but want to switch to another
fuel besides oil, and we still want to lower CO2 emissions,
then the best thing to do would be to switch to locally produced
hydrogen for combustion fuel. If we could have algea produce that,
then by all means let's use them. But as far as I know that is not
really economically feasible yet, so untill we've cultivated such
alga strains, we can use electrolysis.
Ah, I can hear you thinking "so where do we get the electricity from?",
well, what about diverting a few of those billions of dollars that our
respective countries pump into the totally useless Afghanistan war
and finally building that Fusion power plant they were on the verge
of building what was it, 8 years ago now? (It's true, they were just
about to build one in France, international cooperative and all, when the
"war on terror" was proclaimed and everyone pulled out half of their
funds for use in anti-terrorism measures.)
Or if for some odd reason anyone would find that too far out,
we could still speed up R&D on the new liquid metal nuclear reactor
technology that allows total conversion of uranium into energy,
without any radioactive waste or transuranic element production
(the first is always used by the greenies to oppose anything nuclear,
the latter by the neocons because other countries could use certain
trans-Ur elements like plutonium for weapons). That means: 100%
non-radioactive waste, 100% non-CO2 emitting, and as an added bonus
we could actually recycle all the currently stored nuclear waste as fuel!

Why do our governments try to fool us with biodiesel plans? Why don't they just use
those millions and billions for good, instead of evil? Why do our western governments,
who are supposed to be friends and allies, not get together and fix our fuel problems?

... Oh, that's right, the NWO is steering us toward a new Dark Age where Feudalism rules
and we are all slaves of the noblemen and royal elite. (just to throw in some conspiracy stuff here )

[jeanna]

Hi Koen,
I just noticed this thread.

Redwood trees in northern California US, acidify the soil. (so much so that their own seedlings can't survive)
The charge around a redwood tree is palpable to the human especially to the sensitive ones out to a radius of about 10 feet.
Maybe you would enjoy a trip to northern CA this coming summer.

I don't live there anymore or I'd go right outside with a probe or 2.

jeanna