Biofuels Are the Future...

Seen several articles today on Biofuels and their potential to reduce our current dependence on Hydrocarbons (gas, oil, coal, etc). E85 hasn't really taken off yet here - but in places like Brazil where the difference in price between Biofuels and Gasoline is very pronounced, it is already having a big impact.

How to Beat the High Cost of Gasoline. Forever!

Stop dreaming about hydrogen. Ethanol is the answer to the energy dilemma. It's clean and green and runs in today's cars. And in a generation, it could replace gas.

Now some scientists are re-examining the ROI on biofuels. Seems previous studies claiming that the production of Biofuels results in a net loss of energy are based on some old and vaguely supported assumptions.

Biofuels Better Than Thought

I hadn't really intended for this to become the alternative energy greenhouse - but as I'm 2 for 2 so far, I guess we'll just see how it goes and roll with the flow.

Energy Just Wants to be Free...

Read an article today on Free Energy. I'm not qualified to explain the details - but essentially, there are people who have created rotors driven by magnets that put out more energy than is actively put in to start them up and to keep the things rotating. Faraday discovered this phenomenon back in the 1800's and others have dabbled in applying it to practical devices off and on since the 1970's, but without anyone coming up with a generally accepted explanation of why it works (or proving that it doesn't).

Here's the article: Scientists Claim To Tap The Free Energy Of Space

It's controversial in that it appears to violate this physical law that says energy can't be created from nothing. Assuming it's not some hoax, possible rationalizations point to some here-to-fore unidentified energy that lies hidden in the space that surrounds us all the time, and conjecture that magnets can somehow access and tap into this hidden energy.

Addng to the intrigue are the obvious implications such a discovery would have for Big Energy. If low cost Free Energy generators were to become common and viable, demand for oil and coal and other fossil fuels would inevitably drop, perhaps significantly. Conspiratorial theories accusing the government of colluding with Big Energy to keep the discovery as unidiscovered as possible are almost expected as an explanation of why this technology has yet to poke it's way into the mainstream.