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Newest Energy Source — Pond Scum
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that several start up companies include one from MIT are looking at using (both natural and engineered) algae as source of bio-fuel. Since algae grows quickly and absorbs green house gases. From the article "Soybeans can give you 50 to 60 gallons of oil an acre compared to 75 to 125 gallons for canola, but algae is almost limitless because it grows so fast, so potentially you could get 10,000 gallons per acre."
Generate electricity for these:
http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/
or these:
http://www.teslamotors.com/
And everything else. Then you don't have to bugger about expending energy processing it the stuff into biofuels.
Deleted
Very interesting, thanks!
From a quick scan - "Even with aggressive assumptions about biological productivity, we project costs for biodiesel which are two times higher than current petroleum diesel fuel costs".
If that was in 1998, then at should be very feasible with current petrol costs, especially taking into account the added value of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
There was something a bit like this on Dirty Jobs as I remember. It was a research project that took the output of a power plant (a portion of it) and ran it though tubes of algae that would filter it and remove CO2 and grow, then they could burn the algae afterwards. That way they could get the "free" energy (from the sun that the algae was storing) plus is was carbon neutral if implemented on a large scale.
We just have to be careful that while we enslave the algae, they don't know it's happening so they don't start an uprising. I don't want a very thin layer of mad green goo covering everything.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The article talks pretty high of this algae. Acres upon acres of biodiesel creating algae for all!
It seems pretty biased to me. No mention of the energy required to run the biodiesel plants. No mention of exactly how long each yield cycle takes. I mean, great, 10k gallons of biodiesel (even up to 20k) per acre.. per how long? It's a measure of time I thought? So why are you giving me these one-dimensional 'rates'. Sounds pretty skim on the details.
And let's talk about acres. I'd rather cover an acre of desert with solar panels than an acre of land in more moderate climates. And now I get led into the question of solar vs. algae. The algae gets its energy from photosynthesis. Great. But can an acre of algae really compete with an acre of the highest efficiency solar cells -- again, over time? Which one wins in the end?
Look, I'm not saying I disagree, I think it's great people are pursuing alternate forms of fuel. But if you're going to write an article and call it news the least you could do is play devil's advocate along side fanboy. Give me some compare and contrast, some pros and cons. That's all I want!
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Been there, done that. Next you'll be telling us the the first controlled flight took place in America.
God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.
If the 100,000 barrels per acre is even close to accurate there's more than enough hog waste to produce what biodiesel we need. I single factory farm could provide enough for hundreds of acres of algae ponds. Nitrogen is miracle grow for algae so farm waste could be the new middle east. I'd read about this process years ago but the numbers seem much better than I could have imagined.
I think that it is worth noting that the 10,000 gallons per acre estimate assumes that the algae will have a gas feed from a coal power plant. It would be more apt to compare the tield of this process to direct generation of liquid fuel from coal since it's essentially generating it indirectly. Other questions unanswered by TFA: Are there enough coal plants in the country to support a total replacement of gasoline by this method? Does it affect the efficiency of the power plant? How long will our coal resources last if this were implemented on a large scale? What are the maintainence costs (hard to estimate from a test setup, but important to consider)?
> If that was in 1998, then at should be very feasible with current petrol costs,
Only if you can burn the product in current systems, otherwise you have to factor in the conversion costs. And you have to assume oil prices will still be insane when your production makes it online. I'd bet on oil remaining high for a while personally, not sure how many billions I'd bet though.
> especially taking into account the added value of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
How moronic do they make Greens these days? Yea that pond scum will absorb a lot of CO2... and release it right back when you burn it for fuel. So it is carbon neutral unless you plan to compact the algae into bricks and bury it. Of course neutral still beats burning dead dinosaurs who fixed their carbon millions of years ago.
Stories like this are why I don't worry about running out of oil or about global warming. Anytime the system begins to get unbalanced it forces a correction through the free market, and it works even faster and better when the government stays the hell out of things and allows nature to take its course. As oil becomes more expensive, potential replacements that used to be discarded as uncompetitive start looking viable. Once one gets established the intense competition that drove the cost of oil production down will make the new thing cheap and plentiful.
Democrat delenda est
Actually, that would be third-dimension, since acres are two dimensional units.
Anyway, duckweed doubles its biomass in 10 days. It's one of, if not the fastest growing plant known (which explains why it's such a pest in our backyard pond). However, since algae need not remain on the surface, the water could be agitated to perhaps increase the usable volume in which the algae grows. That probably wouldn't work for duckweed which a) floats very well, and b) has a sort of floating root which would cause problems. But if it grows faster, it might not matter -- assuming it's usable in the first place.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This is basic economics. Oil companies make more money with less work by keeping supplies low. Demand is always there, that isn't a problem at all, so they juke the market by not producing more oil. It's dogsquat simple in concept and makes them uberbillions every quarter. They don't want to work harder for less money per work unit. no one wants to do that really. Do you? Would you go out of yur way to put yourself out of a job? That's what you are thinking the oil companies should do, and guaranteed, most of them hates that idea. And it is in their economic capitalist interest to work as hard as they can behind the scenes to sabotage any alternative energy project which threatens their cartel monopoly on transporation energy. They are OK with "studies" as long as the studies last 30 years and result in more studies. Dig it?
BP is an example (one of the very, very few) of an energy company that used to be just an oil company, but they "seen the light" and now are "energy", hence their commitment to oil, solar and windpower and whatever else looks good and they have been working along those lines for several years now. Exxon is an oil company only and have testified (their last *disgusting* parasite bloated tick CEO who got the 400 million buck severance package) in front of the senate to this effect. They have no interest whatsoever in anything else, because that means they would have to go work harder and invest their profits in new infrastructure instead of enjoying the cash as they see fit with private jets, yachts booze and hookers and they think "FU, we don't have to do anything you want us to do, because we got what you need,an we run the government for the most part,so suck it up trapped consumer and turn over your wallet to us".
They work on the artificial scarcity & controlled government model of capitalism.