Jim Albus (an old Byte author) about 25 years ago was looking into moving the
world forward from hunter gather petroleum hunters to petroleum farmers. One of
his proposals at a conference I attended was the lily pad farm of algae like
plants growing in the open ocean on what essentially was a large rubber raft up
to a few kilometers across. He had scenarios for production, folding the whole
farm up in a storm and economics.

Some of Jim's books are a good read.

w..

James Newtons Massmind wrote:

> I would like to see a good engineering comparison of the following two
> things:
>
> A) A field of some size planted with some plant that grows over some time
> and is then harvested, fermented to alcohol or oil extracted and that
> resulting product burned to move a car down a road.
>
> B) A field of the same size covered in solar panels or other means of
> electric power generation and that power stored in batteries and used to
> move a car down a road.
>
> Which one:
> 1. is less costly to implement?
> 2. moves the car further over some set time (say 1 year)?
> 3. is more repeatable / renewable?


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