[ RadSafe ] query

[John R Johnson]

Franz et al

And biodiesel is now being concidered. See http://www.dieselnet.com/ .

John
 _________________
John R Johnson, Ph.D.
*****
President, IDIAS, Inc
4535 West 9-Th Ave
Vancouver B. C.
V6R 2E2
(604) 222-9840
idias at interchange.ubc.ca
*****

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl]On
Behalf Of Franz Schönhofer
Sent: December 13, 2006 11:47 AM
To: 'Bernard L. Cohen'; 'RadiatSafety'
Subject: AW: [ RadSafe ] query


Bernard,

I have problems to understand your message - simply because consideration of
methanol as a fuel is several decades old. In the late 70's there was a
project (not executed) to build a pipeline from Poland to Austria through
which a slurry of coal in methanol should be sent to Austria to substitute
power from the "cancelled" nuclear power plant at Zwentendorf.

Methanol has a much higher value concerning energy efficiency per liter
compared to ethanol. Without doubt there are much higher costs for producing
it than for ethanol. Of course it may be produced from wood - but at what
costs? Heat is not the only cost factor. What about the tremendous amount of
by-products, which to a small part could of course be used commercially, but
the major part would cause a lot of costs for disposal? A simple reasoning:
If this kind of producing fuel would be financially favourable the big oil
companies would have changed to it since long. Thinking of this possibility
this might have changed politics dramatically - no invasion of Iraq would
have been taken place, not tens or hundreds of thousands of people would
have died. Another question is whether wood is really so easily available
and so cheap. This depends on the region, sure this is not the case in the
middle east. I see again that comments by US citizens do not take into
consideration that there is a world outside the USA. Regarding the use of
for instance corn for fuel production I would question whether it is
politically and ethically correct to use potential food to produce fuel for
thirsty car engines.

My opinion is, that if it would have been really economically favourable, it
would have been done since long.

Franz Schoenhofer
PhD, MR iR
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
AUSTRIA
phone -43-0699-1168-1319


> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] Im
> Auftrag von Bernard L. Cohen
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 13. Dezember 2006 19:46
> An: RadiatSafety
> Betreff: [ RadSafe ] query
>
>     With all the discussion of ethanol from corn as a fuel, why is there
> no consideration of methanol which can be made from wood which is much
> more easily grown (and more cheaply available).than corn? All that is
> needed to convert wood into methanol is heat which could be obtained
> from nuclear reactors -- no very high temperatures required.
>
> --
> ÐÏࡱá
>
>
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