[extropy-chat] Peak Oil news

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On 3/16/06, Robert Bradbury <robert.bradbury at gmail.com> wrote:

 Second, that corn or sugar cane as the "green" fuel
> sources are relatively inefficient.  This is only true right now.
> Optimizing crops for biofuel production is an ongoing process which holds
> great potential for improvement.  It took centuries to "tune" current crops
> for food production but our tools are now much better for rapidly producing
> enhanced fuel crops.
>

### I agree with the above. Indeed, biofuels as practiced today are
just a wasteful way of pretending you are being nice to the
environment (at best), or a dirty political influence con game.
However, in the future, it might be possible to achieve major
improvements in the efficiency of biofuel production: Imagine
engineering trees that would pipe the sugars they produce to a
structure at the base of the trunk, where they would be directly
connected to a network of pipes, collecting the raw material with
minimal effort, potentially for decades without any expenditure of
labor. Kerosene or other materials with good energy-storage properties
and compatibility with the desires of end-users could also be produced
in this way.

Barring the singularity, this would one of the nicest futures I could
imagine: Living in huge forests filled with majestic trees abundantly
providing fuel for all the extravagances I might fancy.

Rafal