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Bio-diesel Made from Sewage
tito writes "A New Zealand company has successfully turned sewage into modern-day gold. New Zealand Herald is reporting that a Marlborough-based Aquaflow Bionomic yesterday announced it had produced its first sample of bio-diesel fuel from algae in sewage ponds.
It is believed to be the world's first commercial production of bio-diesel from 'wild' algae outside the laboratory - and the company expects to be producing at the rate of at least one million litres of the fuel each year from Blenheim by April."
sewage coming out of the tailpipe or french fries?
Finally we are going to be able to use our waste to ease some form of our lives.
I can already think of a slogon- "Waste makes haste"
E85 != Biodiesel.
... well... biologically produced diesel fuel.
E85 is ethanol.
Biodiesel is
Finding other idiots on
How much is that compared to the oil consumption of New Zealand? How many of those factories would be needed to be independent of crude oil and would that be feasible?
to burrito gas powering cars instead of just stinking them up.
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Remember folks - there is not going to be a single replacement for fossil fuels, but many (and lets not forget the other half of the equation - reducing our energy consumption).
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
You can produce bio-diesel from a vast diversity of lifeforms as long as they contain lipids. The real question is to know if a source can be economically viable.
Only reason E-85 costs more in the US is because we make it with corn instead of sugar cane. Brazil based theirs on cane and produce it for about half what it costs for gasoline.
could be a shitter. You could go to mcdonalds *and* gas up at the same time.
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1 Million litres may be a decent start, but it sure isn't much. There's a corn-fuled ethanol producing plant in Kansas that produces 26 million gal of ethanol a year, and that hardly makes a dent (src: popular mechanics). (and yeah I know bio-diesel has a higher BTU then corn-based ethanol, but it still wouldn't reach even close to the output of another alt fuel plant).
If we were smart we would pull a brazil and start producing more corn to use as ethanol. They will be oil-independent by next year. Sugar-based ethanol is something like 8 times more efficient then corn-based. Shows what we know right?
"...and the company expects to be producing at the rate of at least one million litres of the fuel each year from Blenheim by April"
If this catches on large areas that used to look blue from space are gonna start to turn green. Or maybe you can get different coloured algae these days.
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
An inventor, Mr. Simpson from Springfield, has invented a new car seatto be used in conjunction with the vehicles that will run on sewage bio-diesel.
Simpson said, "It's just a prototype right now, but it has been my lifelong dream to contribute something truly my own to this bio-movement."
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
My car already runs LIKE shit, now it can run ON shit as well.
To err is human. To forgive is not company policy.
Another reason is that gasprices in the US are incredibly low from a european point of view, mostly due to taxes. Biofuel would be less likely te be as heavily taxed over here, making it cheaper at the gas station.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Not that this is the reason for using it... but most cars on the road now that can run e85 will not be savign money. e85 is a bit cheaper and your milage is a bit less. The savings (there is some) will be very little. The implications of cutting our oil consumption (from gasoline) by 75 % is HUGE. It's just not a financial thing.
Was there ever a greater incentive to overtake the vehicle in front of you?
Would this mix give a similar effect or does the DW bit cause problems? :)
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
Where 'zactly do you think oil comes from? a similiar process by nature.
what about our umpteen to the millionth descendants, (or the coackroaches descendants) who need the oil our sewage was to provide to them 50k years from now.. but harvesting not only existing oil, but pre-oilotic algae now-- we are dooming their technological re-evolution!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I still haven't found anything that states how large an area/volume of pond they must have in order to produce one million litres/year. It is also interesting to note that they require aerating the pond
My work here is dung.
The UNH Biodiesel Group calculated that algae farms in the Mojave Desert alone could supply enough fuel to replace all the gasoline used in the USA. That was just an example to show the land-area requirements. In practice you would want algae cultivation spread out around the country. (The availability of waste feedstocks around the country is one reason.)
I like biodiesel as a long-term solution for several reasons. . .
Because an air-breathing engine draws much of its "fuel" mass from the air, it starts with a large advantage in energy density, and it will be hard for other energy sources -- batteries, supercapacitors, flywheels -- to ever compete.
Unlike hydrogen, we already have the infrastructure in place to handle, store and distribute biodiesel, and millions of vehicles that can already run off it, and the capacity to economically produce millions more of them.
Producing it from algae mimics the process by which petroleum originally formed, over the eons. It might seem unrealistic to produce enough biofuel on a year-by-year basis to replace the *millions* of years worth of petroleum that we routinely burn without thinking anything of it. . . But the natural processes that created petroleum were haphazard, and hardly what anyone would call efficient.
If you replace haphazard processes with specially selected (maybe genetically engineered) strains of algae kept in controlled conditions, with concentrated feed of nutrients and sunlight, the production capacity could be immense. So yeah, I think it can be done.
We might not ever see dirt-cheap fuel again, but I'm optimistic that we can come up with petroleum alternatives at a level that allows our economy and industry to keep on functioning.
Brown gold! Kiwi tea! Uh, oh, I think I've got a gusher...
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
In New Zealand SUV's get crap Mileage .Boom Boom
They say that the bio-diesel made from used cooking oil makes the emission smell like french fries. Sort of makes you wonder what sewage is going to smell like.
Humans contain lipids.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Brazil has cheap labor and the production is subsidized by their government. You don't really want to run a car on ethanol because your service costs will go up and you'll soon stuff the engine.
Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
Algae growth will be explosive given the concentration of shit on the desks of patent clerks.
I can see the farmers smiling and laughing at what we have all known for years. They now have proof that the more beans you eat the more bio fuel you can produce. So, quit lighting your farts and put them to good use.
Oh great Now I get stuck behind some rust bucket that looks and SMELLS like shit.
This has the be the shittyest idea I have ever heard!
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
TDP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerizat ion produces light crude, not biodiesel. It'd work just fine on sewage, in addition to pretty much anything else that contains any lipids, plastics, gums, rubbers, etc. Long carbon chains, basically.
I keep my eye on the company and technology, and am extremely disapointed that the only commercial plant up and running so far is only pumping out approximately 800,000 gallons per year from waste (turkey offal) that's not actually waste because the US government hasn't outlawed using animal products as animal feed.
I thought these plants were supposed to convert sewage already
isn't one online in Missouri right now?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Then their back of the napkin calculations would be wrong. To replace all the transportation fuels we use in the US, about 25% of what the world uses, would require roughly 15,000 square miles of the Sonora Desert, which is around 120,000 square miles total. This was previously reported on /. and the pilot testing for large scale production has already been completed. More detail and a good overview here.
The funny thing about all this is that the oil producing algae research was first conducted by our very own US Dept. of Energy. And just like Brazil is taking the lead in showing the world how to achieve energy independence, another country is taking our research and showing how to make themselves less dependent on foreign oil. Kind of funny to watch the rest of the world passing us by in energy research, education, and manufacturing while Bubba and his red state buddies think it's just a hoot to haul their gas burning 4 wheelers out to the recreation area in their pickups that get 9 miles to a gallon, which they absolutely have to drive all the time because they need a truck big enough to haul their gas toys on the weekend.
It's like living in a continuous showing of Hee Haw.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
According to the UNH study and Wikipedia, the yield of algae farms is about 5000 to 20,000 gallons per acre of pond per year. This number varies mostly due to the pond conditions, strain of algae used, and oil collection method employed.
However, it is worthwhile to note that even the low end (5000 gallons per acre per year) is over 100 times better than soybeans (50 gallons per acre per year) or rapeseed (about 120 gallons per acre per year)... which are the two dominant crops providing biodiesel in America and Europe today.
To supply the entire US fuel needs would require as little as 0.3% of US land area to be covered by algae ponds. This translates to about 28,000 square kilometers, or about 11,000 square miles. To put this in perspective, that is about 1/8th the size of Kansas... and well less than the area devoted to Soybeans currently.
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
Does anyone know if the algae used was prokaryotic (cyanobacteria) or eukaryotic (i.e., green, red, brown algae...), or perhaps the pool of algae used was a mixed bag of both pro and eukaryotic algae?
Who does? :)
http://michaelsmith.id.au
And to think you could have gotten it right.
In Soviet Russia, BioDiesel makes YOU!
I have nothing to say.
Why is this exciting? Because it makes the "hydrogen economy" a waste of time and effort. No need for expensive tanks or hydrogen distribution, no need for huge reformer plants. The existing electricity network provides the main commuter charge for vehicles, the (greatly reduced) gas and Diesel network provides for longer trips. Result: a mixed energy economy based largely on existing technology which allows wind and wave power, nuclear power and biofuel to contribute effectively to energy needs.
Why won't it happen? Because in this economy the oil companies are downgraded in importance, whereas in the hydrogen economy they rule the world. Let's just hope George hasn't been paying Condi in oil shares, so President Rice (or McKain, don't mind really) can do the Right Thing.
Pining for the fjords
I saw a TV programme about this! There's nothing but crap on the telly these days.
bang goes my karma... again...
A million liters per year certainly isn't a very large quantity of fuel. But if this were done in a hundred places, in New Zealand alone, it would start to add up. The conversion of bio-matter to diesel fuel is not a very complicated process. Aside from algae grown on sewage, just about any organic waste can be used. One of my favorite current trends is to set up biodiesel plants next to meat rendering plants to consume the waste of the rendering.
Not only that, but there is an very important side affect here. The growing and harvesting of the algae purifies the waste water. This would be a fantastic process to move to developing countries. Out of their waste, they would get both fuel and clean water.
But you are correct that this isn't a silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. But there are quite a few things that can be done that cumulatively help to solve the problem.
I for one welcome our new wild algae overlords.
Belgians, mainly.
A more appropriate simpsons reference would've been from the last episode, where Moe thinks he strikes oil when he accidentally fires his shotgun into the ground, but in reality it's sewage.
Proud Rememberer of the BBS Days.
Okay, so we all know a million liters of fuel isn't much in the grand scheme of things. Worldwide, many billions of gallons and tons of assorted fossil fuels are consumed, which means that a million gallons a year from one facility is pretty small potatoes when stacked up against the fuel demands of the world.
I think we're forgetting that the fuel need not leave town, though. Locally produced bio-fuels could supply limited geographic areas with at least some quantity of cheap fuel, which at least helps whoever lives there. It doesn't have to travel, meaning it retains much more of its value since less energy and effort has to be spent to move it from point 'A' to point 'B', and since a township produces it, a township reaps the benefits, immediately benefitting the local economy. It's like the farmer's market for gas, yaknow?
I have to wonder if anyone here has ever heard the phrase, "Think global, act local." I also have to wonder if anyone here considers that it's pretty stupid to rely on just one source of fuel. Let me lay it out for you, here - we already have an absolutely massive bio-fuel 'portfolio', detailing dozens of ways that businesses and communities can produce useful quantities of bio-deisel and ehtanol, but using just one or two of them probably isn't going to be enough to take oil out of the picture, especially if only a few people give it a shot. Right now, we need to take what we can get, and the ability to produce fuel in the process of purifying wastewater is something nobody should overlook. If nothing else, the cost of water purification could be offset by fuel sales, potentially reducing utility costs.
Gives a whole new meaning...
"Nice car, what does she run on?"
"Regular gas..."
eeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuu
Finally, a way to have home filling stations! Shat her in, fill her up!
Cheesy Movie Night
The following national geographic article describes a company that started this type of thing years ago. They built a plant next to a turkey farm to convert byproducts to oil. My understand is it worked, but was not as efficient as they hoped.
1 25_031125_turkeyoil.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1
What some people on slashdot should be interesting to know is Bush proposed some tax credits for this company in 2004 to help with R&D. It got shot down by the Democrates who literally made fun of Bush and called them "Turkey Credits".
Another is that the crops we produce are net-energy negative. When you use petrolium-based fertalizer, you're putting more stored energy into the crop than you can hope to get out of it, nevermind the energy used in extraction.
Ethanol might be a stop-gap measure, but we cannot rely on it for any long term means. Repeat after me:
Energy is a zero-sum game.
You get out no more than was put in. We are using at a faster rate than it can be replenished. Now, I'm environmentally friendly to a point - I try to remember the two more useful corners of the conservation triangle: "Reduce, Reuse" as well as the third one we all know. I love puppies, and I don't want to kill any spotted owls, etc. But, the only 100 year + solution I see right now is to move to nuclear power. In a sense, you get more from nuclear power than it costs to find it, extract it, etc. Moving all of our gas powered or coal powered lifestyle choices to nuclear power is probably quickly becoming the best option. The environmental impact can be bad on a small local scale for aquatic wildlife wherever a dam needs to be built to accumulate cooling water; but the overall impact will be much less.
sig?
Take a look at an american company called "Changing World Technologies". They can create regular gasoline products from agricultural waste etc in much the same way.
"Ok kids, we have stop now for a while, daddy has to crap to the tank."
I believe there will be too much environmental pressure from the "naturally occuring" slime that seems to accumulate and even thrive there.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
But I am pretty sure you can't grow sugarcane in most of the US. Although I hear sugar beets provide a decent alternative.
No shit?
I am as interested in how this could scale down as well as scale up. Sure, economies of scale can give us certain efficiencies, but having the ability to do this on the personal level makes for more personal independence and less reliance on corporations.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Where would you get the water? Before you answer "from the sewage of LA", the Mojave desert is uphill from LA, you would have to pump water up there. Even Imperial valley and the Salton sea would not be practical for this since they are quite a long distance from LA, with mountains in between.
I think more practical locations for this in the USA would be states in the Southeast, which have a wet climate.
Right now most Americans pay sewage charges to have their waste removed and processed. If anyone started converting that waste to bio-diesel Americans would probably complain that they should not have to pay to have waste remove, but be payed for it since it has value!
Greedy Americans... thank God I am one... Otherwise I would ramble on all day about them, while wishing I was one! *grin*
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Algae farming actually has the potential of replacing all diesel and gasoline usage in the US using only a tiny fraction of the land area available. There are several cost/benefit analyses of this on the 'net, such as this one. Estimates of algae-biodiesel yield range from 10,000 to 20,000 US gal/acre/year. Soy-diesel has a lower yield, but has some other economically beneficial by-products. Biodiesel is the most promising energy technology I have seen to date. Compare biodiesel to ethanol -- the producers of ethanol find it more economical to burn fossil fuels in ethanol production than the ethanol -- DOH! With the current price of dinofuel around $3/gal, biodiesel is also suddenly cost-competitive, and for about $3000, you can buy a home biodiesel production facility that can manufacture 40 gallons/week at a cost of about 50 cents per gallon plus whatever you have to pay for the oil, and about 2 hours/week in ongoing labor.
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So... instead of an oil shortage, we'll seen have a waste shortage?
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What you are suggesting is a paradox. If our descendants still need oil in the future. That means that our efforts now were/are/will be unsuccessful. Which means that we will soon see that oil from sewage was/is/will be unsuccessful which means that there was/is/won't be a problem in the first/last place. Damn I hate speaking temporally.
Not to mention that this is a private enterprise, so they'll be making money and stimulating the economy at the same time -- and only need to be mildly profitable for a slew of like-minded ventures to spring up across the globe. Not unlike the thermal depolymerization plant in the states, the first is practically just a demonstration of the feasability. The real money is when 20 identical plants spring up somewhere, and then another 100 down the line. Combining recycling and fuel production is a fabulous thing, although it's a bit surprising that our waste and garbage contains so much recoverable energy.
Well, filling a 15 gallon tank on two cars weekly for a year = 1560 gallons. So at 5000 gallons per acre per year, if all the open space of a large half-acre suburban lot were devoted to your personal sewage farm, you could just squeak by. Plus you'd save on home security bills, what with the giant moat of fecal slime surrounding your house. And you'd reduce tension with the neighbors, because you'd welcome your neighbor's dog crapping in your yard.
The first thing I thought of was "Mr. Fusion." If it doesn't make sense, go back and watch Back to the Future I and II. Second, now all we have to do is make the world ACTUALLY REALIZE that we need to embrace alternate fuel sources, rather than just playing lip service to the idea, then going back and drilling holes in the sand. I honestly think that that is just as important as developing the methods themselves. Sadly, I fear that most of us have trouble seeing past the immediate and I fear that a lot of people talk about alternate fuel sources because it sounds good, its en vogue. Who knows, though.... hopefully I'm wrong.
to quote the Discover 2003 article:
Just converting all the U.S. agricultural waste into oil and gas would yield the energy equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil annually. In 2001 the United States imported 4.2 billion barrels of oil.
The company is producing quality for about $80.00 per barrel, but have caught so much hell from local and state government and indifference from the fed that they're pack'in up and going to Europe!
thermal convesion
From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank I would like to make a title suggestion for the next book in the series.
From the Sewer to the Cylinder.
When the boiling begins, my suggestion is to start with the title holders of Tahoes, Escalades, and Canyon Arrows. The buyers/owners in that market surely contain the largest volumes of lipidous material.
Side Note: I'm happy the Fed is raising the interest rate....hopefully this will curb the demand for $40k loans. Trim the fat off the market.
Spending Resources on Defense leaves Less to defend.
And they say that we have been giving the Middle East shit.
Doesn't look like such a good deal after all.
So, does this mean that you would invite people like this?
Sounds great, but what happens when Max busts a deal, faces the wheel, and a very pissed off Master Blaster declares embargo?
f u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmng
Yes, they could be stupid like that, OR alternatively, and more intelligently, they're probably investing money into the company if they think that the company will succeed. I sure hope you don't run a business.
Does this mean Microsoft will now become a world leader in fuel production, other than burning MSCE manuals for heat?
Another reason is that gasprices in the US are incredibly low from a european point of view
And currently, e85 is subsidized by the US government. Wait until people get hooked on it, and then, it will be the same or more than gas (which is already e10 or so already depending on your location and time of year). In the "free" market, they call it bait and switch.
I'm adamantly opposed to government subsidies. It screws up the real free market.
"Cost" is difficult to interpret when corn and sugar are involved. Both are so heavily subsidized that it's difficult to say what the true "cost" is.
As with so many alternatives, though, it's just nice to know that when we run out of oil (i.e., when it is so scarce that we're going to sound like our grandfathers when we talk about "gas at only $3 a gallon"), something else might be more economical.
Stuff that's too expensive now (solar, bio, etc.) will eventually be viable. But if it's subsidized heavily, it will be overproduced at some point.
This is a very obnoxious comment
www.familyjunction.org the space meant for music
Apart from biodiesel, algae is also being considered as a source for hydrogen.
I still think that HEMP is the way to go.
From 1 acre of hemp you can produce
1300 gal of bio diesel
The equivalent amount of paper as 10 acre's of trees
The equivalent of 5 acres of cotton in cloth.
Hemp Seed flower (For cake, bread, etc)
and
Pulp products that can replace cardboard and many plastic products.
This is from the different parts of the plant. That means that you get ALL of them at the same time. Not just growing corn for fuel and throw away the rest.
Surely you're being silly. Photosynthesis is an amazing process that harvests the colossal power of the sun. The total amount of animal and plant matter on this planet I'm sure will keep the oil creation rate the same and should keep that thousands of years/cycle process of creating oil in check. The problem is that our consumption rate far exceeds the creation rate.
If we can become self sufficient off of a daily cycle (use only the amount of energy that was captured that day by the algae, or by a solar panel, or by a wind turbine), then we should never have to get to the point where we need to deep cycle and dip into the oil reserves.
Does this mean a full of shit /.'r now has value?
a u
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/9176/jeffrsns.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
That plant is a customer of mine. I have equipment there. And yes, they use turkey waste as their fuel (there is a turkey plant down the street). It works. I can't say whether it scales well but that plant - in Carthage, MO - seems to be doing just fine.
BTW, thanks for the link. I hadn't seen that article before. Its a great explanation of the process.
Biofuels are about converting solar energy to useful power sources so in that sense there is fast enough replenishment.
As for net energy from energy crops, LCA can be used to calculate the total energy required to produce a litre of transport fuel (petrol or diesel).
This UK study from 2003 found net energy gains from the production of biodiesel.
From that study:
Significant reduction in net CO2 emissions from biodieselIndependence? That's middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. G.B Shaw
Can't beleive this got accepted when my submission yesterday got rejected. here it is Note: 3.5/gal/day of Diesel from 1 Pig!
Once it is rejected you can't recall it, that is not good. But here is the link: UI researcher makes crude oil from pig manure
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
Large pools of water? How 'bout New Orleans!
e
In some locations in the U.S., waste vegetable oil (WVO), like the kind left-over from frying the fries, is no longer freely available. Now, Instead of restaurants paying for disposal of WVO, some are paid for it.
Which raises the question of what will happen if the diesel-from-sewage thing catches on. Will we be paid for generating sewage? Could this be a profession?
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
So, the sewage output of a town of 26,000 people can produce 1 million litres of usable fuel. As it was stated above, NZ consumes around 8.8 billion liters of fuel per year. With a population of 4.1 million, that is ~2150 liters of fuel, per person, per year. This plant is producing around 38 litres per person. So they've covered roughly 2% of the fuel use per person. Granted, 2% isn't much, but it is locally produced (removing most of the transportation inefficiencies) and I'm sure it isn't as optimal as it is going to get. It is a start at least. And say you get it to 10%, well that is 10% from something that has just been an eyesore previously.
And that is actually quite a lot of fuel per person. That's around 11 US gallons PER WEEK. I myself use about half that much (I live in the US), so a little energy consumption curbing in NZ could make a large impact on the percentage.
I can now get my car up to 1.21 jigawatts! Now just to get those flying upgrades...
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
it's made from peepooole!
--- Dan
Everything starts somewhere. Remember, at some point in history, there was one oil well.
So how long before I can hook one of these up to my septic system and power my TDI Passat?
I'll be inviting friends over just so they can borrow my bathroom!
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http://www.in.gov/biotownusa/ http://www.intakeweekly.com/articles/5/024302-8225 -160.html
Reynolds, IN, population 600 is to have all of its energy supplied by biorenewable sources.
I hope these folks are not too shocked as they discover that they will get worse fuel mileage with E85. Many of them appear to believe they will get better mileage and save money.
Mitch seems to be pumping quite a bit of cash into Biotown. Maybe he could funnel some of this back into the local school system instead of cutting it's funds. I mean, I know the local district is being wasteful by having three elementary schools with just over 400 kids total...but he can pay for that right? Or, he could do the smart thing and pay to combine the three schools into one and get them back to focusing on education.
With a poor local educational system, Biotown will fail.
If we were smart we would pull a brazil and start producing more corn to use as ethanol.
That's what the mainstream media would like you to think.
http://ergosphere.blogspot.com/2005/09/ethanol-mihttp://ergosphere.blogspot.com/2005/09/ethanol-mi
http://ergosphere.blogspot.com/2005/09/faq.html
This is not my blog, btw. It's by an engineer who has done the math
is probably nice and tight because they anticipate the incoming slashdotting - no bandwidth hungry gifs or flash :)
Those eco-friendly germans not content with recycling industrial waste have found a novel way to despose of the neighbours moggie that you've just accidentally reversed over:
http://www.tnn.co.uk/EuropeanNews/plonearticle.200 5-09-14.1389094726
and the inventors denial:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9339530/
Just think; turning the key in your turbo-diesel sports car, and hearing the engine purr :)
I can't tell if you're kidding or not.
But making long-term plans for our species for 50k years in the future, when we've barely been around for 10k years is kinda
Besides, let 'em solve their own damned energy problems -- we need cleaner, renewable sources now, or we're all gonna kill each other over oil before long.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sounds like a place to stick a bio-ethanol plant too since apparently a lot of supply currently comes from surplus European wines.
At Safeco Field, where the Mariners are determined to demonstrate that their level of play can power the entire western half of the state.
(C'mon, please hurry us into *FOOTBALL* season!)
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
Huh... now ain't that some shit...
Unfortunately, some devious scientists are working hard to end that particular source of energy:
c
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060425/sc_nm/beans_d
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
about 28,000 square kilometers, or about 11,000 square miles. To put this in perspective, that is about 1/8th the size of Kansas
Well, in that case, we might as well cover the other 7/8ths too, and make some for export. If anyone from Kansas asks what's going on, tell them God did it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Hey now, I'm from Kansas... how bout we just cover everything but Lawrence and Kansas City? That would still be like 3/4ths of the state... and Wichita and Topeka are the centers of all things uber-religious...
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
If I were a proponent of genetic engineering (I am not), I would suggest that this is the opportunity for bioengineering to contribute to the energy crisis with a genetically modified version of this hardy blue-green algae that also produces twice as much bio-diesel as the other.
While we're at it, let's engineer it to stay off of public beaches and out of local swimming holes.
No problem, man! The folks who can make oil out of turkey guts should be able to process lobbyists and fat, drunken wind-farm opponents just fine. (I don't know how many of the latter you could get, but the former appear to be a highly renewable resource.)
Sustainability and energy independence essay
I don't think it will work. If you try to capture carbon from the atmosphere to close the loop, natural limits bring the productivity way down. Then you have the inefficiency (60% loss) and pollution of the engines.
If you're going to change the world, don't go halfway. There are at least five battery or capacitor technologies either on the market or near market (Firefly Energy carbon-foam lead-acid battery, A123Systems Li-ion cell, EEStor ultracapacitor, several companies making zinc-air batteries, aluminum batteries) which can supply enough energy density and recharge fast enough to eliminate the need for combustion engines. If your vehicle doesn't need a carbon fuel, you don't need to capture carbon to power it; you can use anything that makes electricity. The list of things that make electricity is a lot longer and some of them (e.g. wind) are mighty cheap per kWh.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Maybe someday there will be an algae tank in every vehicle to process waste of some sort right there, well, not human waste then again RV's could run forever!
All kidding aside I've always liked the idea of biodiesel since I read about it from that Tickel fella of Veggievan fame. I suppose Rudolph Diesel should be given the most credit since he originally planned on using oil crops as the oil source.
I even thought algae would be a great source, the algae in lake Baikal in Russia are supposed to produce a lot of oil.
And yes I do drive a diesel vehicle!
I did those numbers last year, and in four separate pieces I was forced to conclude that ethanol is a boondoggle.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Lots of sunlight in desert regions.
Seems like the equatorial regions suddenly have an advantage in terms of future energy production. Wouldn't it be ironic if in the future Americans may find themselves fighting over shit farms in the Sahara.
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'nuff said...
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
If you drive behind a car running sewage bio diesel, will it smell like poo poo?
This will give new meaning to the "farting buses" in James Schuyler's excellent work of poetry, A Few Days.
To be specific, biodiesel is methyl or ethyl esters of fatty acids.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
The governor of Missouri moved to shut the plant down because of its extreme odor problems. The plant owners claimed the difficulty was a leaking seal (how long would it have taken them to fix a leaking seal?), but the list of modifications they made to deal with the problem says that it was a far bigger issue. Last I read, they were open again. Unfortunately, I had no time to stop in Carthage last month so I couldn't check it out for myself.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
To give just one counter-example, wind farms have roughly a 3-month payback period and EROEI of 80:1 over an estimated 20-year lifespan.
I'm pro-nuke AND pro-wind, but I see people like Teddy Kennedy and Greenpeace shutting down both of them because they refuse to make decisions. The NIMBY monster has grown to BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), and the consequence is that the owners of the current energy systems are laughing all the way to the bank because NIMBYism has blocked all the alternatives.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
It's peeeeeople!!!
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
You don't really want to run a car on ethanol because your service costs will go up and you'll soon stuff the engine.
only if you're stupid enough to run it in a car that is not meant to use high concentrations (greater than about 10%) of ethanol.
ethanol is pretty corrosive stuff, and E85 will dissolve rubber or plastic parts in the fuel system. in FFVs (Flexible Fuel Vehicles, they can run on gas, ethanol, or any mix of the two)), those parts are made out of stainless steel to stop that problem.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
In a book by a Russian author (who was exhiled from Soviet Union for "anti-Soviet propaganda") titled "Moscow 2042," the author describes "Communism" in 2042 in Moscow. To paraphrase, "Oil has long been pumped dry and the pipeline that carried oil to Western Europe now carries sewage, which ordinary citizens must turn in in order to get coupons to be exchanged for food." It seems his predictions are coming true: First, the coup d'etat that happened in 1991, now this :)... Will newspapers, printed on toilet paper be next?
I highly recomend reading it! Very ironic and funny, and (unfortunately) true.
-Palal
This could solve the obesity crisis and energy crisis at the same time! Instead of driving around on your fat ass, you'll be driving around on your ass fat! So how much of this untapped resource is there? Let's see:
Should Middle East cut off the tap, it will become the patriotic duty of every overweight person to donate their fat for biodiesel production. We'll no longer have an obesity crisis. We'll have a Strategic Lipid Reserve.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Earth is considered a Type 0 civilization because we depend on fossil fuels. I wonder if using renewable forms like corn, sugar, sewage, etc. would move us towards type 1.
tell them God did it
Love it. And it would certainly serve all those self-rightious idiots trying to set the nations educational system back 100,000 years about right. What the hell ever became of the strain of humans that lived in Kansas in 1895? Go look up the 8th grade final exam used by the Salinas KS schools in 1895 (see google). I dare say that not one person living today could get an A on that test. And yet its all common sense daily useage problems of an everyday practical nature even in todays world.
But to put this back on topic a bit, the next question I come up with is: How many gallons of shit does it take to make a gallon of this stuff, and on the same vein, how efficiently would we have to be in following range cattle around in order to meet that quota in gallons per year in order to become self-sufficient?
Conversely, are we removing its final value as a fertilizer to replenish the soil? Spreading the used cowbarn bedding on the fields is a time honored way to actually improve the soils over time, and is still done today with at least 99% of it. The other 1% is probably going into tightly covered methane producing ponds that on a per site basis for large operations, is indeed making those operations self-sufficient in producing the electricity they need to run the operation. And they can still use the sludge as fertilizer. If we take that out of it, so the soil is not replenished, then I don't care how efficient the process can be made, its purely for short term gain, something the average MBA understands all too well. There ought to be a bounty on them critters as it seems to me the single most obvious requirement to become an MBA is to throw away any and all shreds of common sense God may have given them in the first place. But thats another rant entirely.
Interesting questions, but the VC folks, before they'll even get upwind of the project, will want to know all these things in order to figure out the feasability of turning a profit in a reasonable time frame. And too many of them are 90 day wonder MBA's.
--
Cheers, Gene
Thermal Depolymerization ... good stuff. The idea of taking true waste product, be it dead animal byproduct, human feces or recycled plastic and turning it back into something usable is wonderful.
In 20 years time maybe the entire nation's oil can come from our own waste... and the campaign slogan for the environmental candidate for POTUS can be "Stop using this shit".
FWIW, I believe these folks have done it in europe:
Changing World Tech
Who run Bartertown now? And when will they build the Thunderdome?
-DC
Ya know, if we just covered the unpopulated areas of Canada with algae, would anyone really know the difference? I mean, Canada is 9,976,140 square kilometers, or 2,465,157,875.61 (that's trillion) acres. I think Canucks live in like 1/10000000 of that.
If we took 2400000000 acres, which produce at a minimum 5000 gallons per acre, that's 12 TRILLION gallons of bio-diesel. Of course, since Canada has winter 11/12 months, I guess we could squeeze a least a trillion gallons of bio diesel each year. Being such a big country, it would have the same risk of running a grow-op. Would anoyone notice? Maybe the lines of big trucks hauling out the algae... but if they made it like they were hauling out cows... yah, cows.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
The nice thing about most of these systems is that the interesting stuff remains after you extract the energetic stuff. Biodiesel only contains C, H and O, leaving the N, P and other useful elements. The remainder, if one is careful about the intermediate products, makes a very nice fertilizer component.
SOYLENT DIESEL
NZ consumes around 151,900 blue barrels a day that's around 8815 million litres a year. So this plant will be able to provide around 0.01% of NZ's fuel.
It's a misleading question. NZ's cars do not all have diesel engines, so even if this plant produced 8815 ML, they still would use petroleum for much of their transportation.
In order to "be independent of crude oil", they'd need (a) a lot more biodiesel, and (b) to trade all of their gasoline cars for diesels. I suspect that part (b) is a lot harder to do.
Roads? Where where going Marty we don't need... roads!
Welcome our shit eating algae overlords!
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
Visit the community website for further information on the ocean out fall project in Christchrch, New Zealand. If you would prefer that this effluent is not piped into the ocean, then sign the partiton against ocean outfall
Does this all of a sudden mean that oil companies being full of shit is a *good* thing?
I think we need to look for alternatives to Middle East oil in the short term,
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and alternatives to polluting fuels in the long term .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel
The Algae is the best producer per this chart excerpted from that site :
* Soybean: 40 to 50 US gal/acre (40 to 50 m/km)
* Rapeseed: 110 to 145 US gal/acre (100 to 140 m/km)
* Mustard: 140 US gal/acre (130 m/km)
* Jatropha: 175 US gal/acre (160 m/km)
* Palm oil: 650 US gal/acre (610 m/km) [2]
* Algae: 10,000 to 20,000 US gal/acre (10,000 to 20,000 m/km)
It also burns cleaner than conventional diesel and bio-diesel is added to petrol
diesel to meet emissions requirements . It is also better for the engine as well .
Some environmental groups take issue with the amount of fertilizer and other factors
it would take to grow enough Algae to produce enough oil to replace petrol diesel .
Fortunately some ppl have a solution to that .
In Southern California the Salton Sea has no outlet and is become super saturated
with phosphates and salt , more saline than the ocean in fact .
Tract ponds with Solar powered slow crawling harvesters could skim the Algae,
Extracting the algae which used the phosphates to grow and traps a large portion
of the salt in it thus lower salt levels in the water and fertilizer levels .
The tract ponds could be covered by clear recycled plastic to avoid massive
evaporation due to spreading out the water over such a large surface area .
It would be expensive to implement, but current we use over 140 billon gallons
of petrol based fuel , and at $3 a gallon approx. that is over 420 billion a year ,
4.2 trillion in a decade .
I think we could do it for a great deal less than that .
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
The above article covers the math behind what I have said .
Taking the above method and then using it with a very fuel efficient vehicle
and offer a REALISTIC tax break on the super fuel efficient car .
This prototype diesel car could reduce the amount of fuel used by commuters .
http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/gw/vw1litr
It is made from VERY expensive alloys and composites, a much more affordable
version would still achieve well over 100 mpg vs. near 300 mpg .
In the Long term the Algae production could be converted over to this :
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54456
Algae making hydrogen
The synergy of saving the salton Sea and providing a tremendous amount of oil
to end our dependence on foreign oil for all time is taking lemons and making
lemonade in my mind .
Not to mention the eventual hydrogen production once more hydrogen cars ,
and filling stations are available and affordable .
All the variables are not worked out fully, nothing worth doing is easy, but it beats
the situation we face now and the worse one in the future .
Hope for the Future...
Ex_MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
If there ever was an example of where eminent domain should be employed, this is it. Every waste treatment facility and coal fired power plant in the US should be required to build bio-fuel reclamation facilities ASAP or face stiff penalties. This foreign oil dependency situation is out of control, and this bio-diesel generation technique seems to be the most promising solution.
This guy is clearly ahead of his time.
The energy "put in" is comming mostly from SUNLIGHT, not from what we put into it.
And the sun is outputting so much power to the surface of the earth, that it absolutely dwarfs worldwide energy consumption by an unbelivable margin. If we use the more effecient plants for creating biodiesel, it would supply our ever-increasing demands for energy for millenia to come, before we'd have to look elsewhere, or put much work into increasing effecincy.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Example: I've just come back from filling up the car. Was planning on putting 10% ethanol blend in it, but the local Shell don't sell it (in fact, it seems Shell don't sell 10% at all in Australia). They do have a 5% ethanol / 95% premium blend. The prices are like this:
- Regular unleaded : 121.9c/L
- Premium unleaded : 128.9c/L
- 5% ethanol premium unleaded : 138.9c/L
Or, in other words, 10c/L dearer than premium, and a whopping 17c/L dearer than regular!Needless to say, I bought regular unleaded...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Another reason is that gasprices in the US are incredibly low from a european point of view
Brazil isn't in Europe.
I'm a little concerned about this, because I think we're going the need all that poop to grow crops in the absence of petrochemical-derived fertilizers, and I don't want all the sewage to be used up for producing bio-diesel. What is the organic nutrient content of the by-products of this bio-diesel scheme?
As an added bonus, the waste part of the algae (the part that wasn't oil) can then be turned into ethanol!
dom