Massive biofuel plant slated for Alberta »

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  STONERS

  April 18, 2007, 11:26 a.m.

  "The rail infrastructure is massive, that's why we needed so much land," said Dominion president and chief executive Curtis Chandler.

  "We have to be able to take unit car trains in, which are 111 cars, to cut down on our transportation costs."

  The project has been under review by Alberta Environment since March and approval is expected in May, Chandler said.

  "We're deeply into the permitting stage. We've had our permits for a month and a half and we're expecting (environmental) approval in May," said Chandler. "I'm very excited. It will be the largest facility in North America."
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  Dobes_Rule

  April 18, 2007, 1:48 p.m.

  Good for Canada - a great example!
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  bill2936

  April 18, 2007, 3:49 p.m.

  If they tried that in the US, the 'green monsters' of the eco-world would keep the plant tied up in the courts for years before it could ever be built. It might endanger some obscure plant or animal.
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  Hawklead

  April 18, 2007, 3:50 p.m.

  So with wordwide hunger being what it is, we use up food producing land to keep our cars running by building a plant that will consume a lot of elctricity (produced by coal,oil,or gas fired plants)and call this enviormentle protection?

  Has anyone considerd that Biofuels produce less BTUs that Petro? this means more pounds of fuel consumed to produce the same power. This is kind of like using two weak mules to pull a plow instead of one good Ox. then wondering why we have twice as much poop to clean up.

  The best part is that we can drive our cars, using more fuel per mile, and still emitting the same pounds of output per mile , just of a slightly diferent nature.

  The laws of thermodynamics will not be repealed by act of Congress (or the Canadian parliment).
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  BoxMonkey

  April 18, 2007, 4:43 p.m.

  Ah , yes , Hawklead but the poop can be dried out and used as biofuel as well .
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  groingo

  April 18, 2007, 6:03 p.m.

  Washington State has a biodiesl plant going up in Hoquiam, supposed to produce 100 million gallons a year but they are going to get the oil from Malaysia because it is to expensive to produce in Washington.
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  NelsonR

  April 18, 2007, 6:31 p.m.

  I am a proponent of biofuels but if you are religious there is a dilema. Do you turn food into fuel or do you have a greater human population to feed. It's a religious dilema.

  This is a question for the pious?
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  Hawklead

  April 18, 2007, 7:05 p.m.

  I like UBCONFUSE's idea! Lets mow down the lawns and medians (usually planted with weeds or non usable plant life, cultivate as much land as possible! This will make the ecologists happy, especially when this encroches on some strech of wasteland that supports some non essential but "endangerd" mouse.

  Also, Importing oil from Malaysia to domesticly produce biodiesl? that sort of puts us right back were we started.

  Personally (and this is just my opinion) a few nucular power plants would cut greenhouse gas emission drasticly, and provide air pollution free power to run these biofuel plants. This would kill two birds with one stone. Just do as the french do, and burn the fuel rods down to a non radioactive state prior to disposal (in ten years).
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  canadianrancher57

  April 18, 2007, 10:40 p.m.

  Hawklead- Finally I have found someone else that relizes that biofuels and even ethanol are a complete waste of time and resources. We could run cars on methane but the resulting pollution would be the same, simple science. The only way of reducing CO2 is burn less carbon. I also like the idea of nuculear power, and to those that hate this idea, they had better stay inside because the biggers reactor is right up there in the sky, got to love the sunshine.
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  mykel

  April 19, 2007, 12:02 a.m.

  Its about time all of us energy hog american citizens see that ingenuity and inititive of the Canadians proves they are ahead of us in forward thinking of applied independence of fossil fuel.
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  chevydog

  April 19, 2007, 9:06 a.m.

  Just a thought -- In the time from about 1920 to 1970, the internal energy requirement for oil refineries dropped by 30-60%. Bio-fuel technology (at least ethanol) is still in its infancy. I suspect that it will experience a similar drop. So maybe all the hand wringing about "net energy" will be for naught.
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  TryingToBeSane

  April 19, 2007, 10:53 a.m.

  Finally, some good news. Too bad there are those too blind to see it. The article stated that the carbon dioxide emissions would be captured and used in varying ways. If the fossil fuel proponents could take their heads out of their asses for two seconds, maybe they could explain why those emissions are not captured from the tailpipes and smokestacks of American industry and transportation.
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  Hawklead

  April 19, 2007, 11:02 a.m.

  Annother problem with trying to convert water into a fuel form of hydroen is that it consumes a lot of elecricity. At our present technology, it take a pound and a half of fossel fuel to produce two thirds of a pound of hydrogen and a pound of Hydrogen produced only three fourths the BTU per pound of the fossel fuel it is intendended to replace. Not a good exchange of energy values.

  Not that that it can't be improved upon, and resarch may somehow get things up to a one for one equivlent. It just is not there yet.

  I live in an area well known for wind energy production. All the wind power produced here in one day would not be enough to even provide "start up" power for a Nucular power plant. The Palos Verde plant in Arizona kicks out abut the same as Hoover dam. The idea is, wind energy is not the cure all either.
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  quackpot

  April 19, 2007, 11:45 a.m.

  Hawklead, The proposed plant will be producing ethanol and bio-diesil, not hydrogen.

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