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Heywood 19 (1:26)
Topic(s): Biofuels / Environment
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Video Transcript
One can ask, "Can you provide fuel from other than petroleum
sources?" There's a fair amount of petroleum there, but we
need to be concerned about its long-term availability. There
are alternatives; some aren't so good. We can make
petroleum-like fuels out of coal, we've got heavy oils, we've
got oil sands, tar sands, we've got several options. They have
extra greenhouse gas emissions because of the processing extra
energy involved in making those fuels. They'll happen because
they're looking economic. But yes, they do provide fuel, but
they'll increase the greenhouse emissions per mile traveled.
Then we got biofuels. Now, that's promising. It certainly can
supply a really useful component, 5 percent, perhaps 10
percent, perhaps more. And 5 percents are hard to come by, so
we need every one that looks real and makes sense. Could they
grow bigger? Maybe. But there are some issues we need to sort
out. We've got to get a very effective technology of
converting this biomass to fuel, so that we don't waste any
energy along the way. So a lot of issues there. But that's one
of the good things, with some cautions. Maybe developing parts
of the world can develop that as an alternative fuel stream.
These will mitigate the impacts. They won't remove them. So
we've still got lots of hard work and lots of careful,
thinking decision-making ahead.
