[img]http://www.theoildrum.com/files/biofuels_compare.gif[/img]

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3963#more

I can assure you that they won't save us especially Australia, a place that lacks water. Recent food shortages should wake some people up but apparently, there are "some people" who still advocates biofuels. Most governments won't know about biochar and even if they do, it doesn't stop soil erosion, it only helps the soil retain the nutrients. I think the most important statement I should make is that all these biofuels depends on this one big machine and it's called the tractor which requires a lot of diesel. The EROEI of most is negative.



[quote]
[b]Other silicon chemicals[/b]

Carbon
The manufacture of [b]high purity charcoal[/b] suggests potential for high quality activated (commonly with steam) carbon used in the gold extraction industry. (Though the carbon is of a specific form and hardness that is commonly produced from coconut shell, there are price premiums for superior-performance forms. The prospects for manufacturing special grades of carbon are described.

Pyroligneous chemicals
Producing charcoal from timber generates substantial amounts of pyroligneous tars and volatiles that are recycled as fuel by Simcoa. Whereas up to 10 per cent by weight of wood tar is produced, the only one-time commercially viable by-products are methanol, methyl acetate and acetic acid (as once produced at Wundowie, east of Perth) that are now more cheaply produced in large scale petrochemical plants. [/quote]

http://www.chemlink.com.au/silicon.htm

[quote]Silicon is commercially prepared by the reaction of high-purity silica with wood, charcoal, and coal, in an electric arc furnace using carbon electrodes. [/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon

If it's wood or sugar canes, you plant them using petrochemicals so that it grows faster. If it's coal, I don't need to explain CO2.

A lot of people hide behind the fact that solar thermal just uses mostly steel but that is not looking at the big picture. The computers are used so that the parabolic plates can track the sun. Those computers contain very high quality silicon microchips. A lot of deforestation of willow trees/sugar canes, production of those plants, open-pit ming of coal and transportation of silicon to computer manufacturing facilities (not surprising since they're not near rails and if a few are, it doesn't mean they're electrified) require oil.

[Must see] This video demonstrates how toxic the silicon industry is and how many chemicals they use (other sources say thousands):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9023755547560462354

FOUND THE SOURCE:
[quote][b]1000s[/b] of Chemicals are Used in Electronics Production

Just one computer can contain hundreds of chemicals, including lead, mercury, cadmium, brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and [b]polyvinyl chloride (PVC)[/b]. Many of these chemicals are known to cause cancer, respiratory illness and reproductive problems. They are especially dangerous because of their ability to travel long distances through air and water and accumulate in our bodies and the environment. [/quote]
http://www.etoxics.org/site/PageServer?pagename=svtc_toxics_in_electronics




For cargo:

[img]http://www.robl.w1.com/Transport/90-0452.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.robl.w1.com/Transport/M000895.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.robl.w1.com/Transport/M000884.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.robl.w1.com/Transport/M000838.jpg[/img]

This combined with the limited area of distribution of rails and we should have a tough time.