X-Message-Number: 30270
From: Mark Plus <>
Subject: More grasping at straws
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 09:12:01 -0800

In Cryonet #30261, John de Rivaz references:

>Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2

> http://www.wired.com:80/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/S2P


>Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico have found a way of 
using sunlight to recycle carbon dioxide and produce fuels like methanol or 
gasoline.


>The Sunlight to Petrol, or S2P, project essentially reverses the combustion 
process, recovering the building blocks of hydrocarbons. They can then be used 
to synthesize liquid fuels like methanol or gasoline. Researchers said the 
technology already works and could help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, 
although large-scale implementation could be a decade or more away. 


"Wired," along with older magzines like "Popular Science" and the now defunct 
"Future Life" and "Omni," have published "progress porn" like this for years, 
along with stories about manned Mars missions, hypersonic airliners and working 
fusion reactors. For some reason these technological wonders never materialize, 
even if you can demonstrate some of the underlying principles in a laboratory. 


If we had to use the bad alternatives to petroleum all along because we didn't 
know any better, and then discovered today we had 2 trillion barrels of 
recoverable petroleum on the planet (which we probably had before we started to 
pump it out and burn it like proverbial drunken sailors), petroleum would cause 
us to dump the alternatives because its advantages make it look like a miracle 
of "free energy" in comparison.


"Around 2010 the world will be at a new orbit in history. . .  Life expectancy 
will be indefinite. Disease and disability will nonexist. Death wll be rare and 
accidental -- but not permanent. We will continuously jettison our obsolescence 
and grow younger." F.M. Esfandiary, "Up-Wing Priorities" (1981).

Mark Plus

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