Company Claims Potential Magnification In Bio Fuel Production

duanes1967 writes "A company called Joule Biotech claims to have a breakthrough in biofuel production. Their process can create 20,000 gallons of fuel per acre per year at a cost of about $50 per barrel. 'Algae-based biofuels come closest to Joule's technology, with potential yields of 2,000 to 6,000 gallons per acre; yet even so, the new process would represent an order of magnitude improvement. What's more, for the best current algae fuels technologies to be competitive with fossil fuels, crude oil would have to cost over $800 a barrel says Philip Pienkos, a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO. Joule claims that its process will be competitive with crude oil at $50 a barrel. In recent weeks, oil has sold for $60 to $70 a barrel.'"

Comments

Why not save all the time and confusion

[jeffmeden]

Just brand this as "$50/barrel oil derived from harvesting common, readily available snakes and processing them in a revolutionary (and certainly patent-pending) way".

Let's do the math...

[rayharris]

Assumptions:
- They can actually generate 20,000 gallons per acre per year
- 1 gallon of biofuel will get you the same mileage as 1 gallon of gasoline

US gasoline usage = 378,000,000 gallons/day = 137,970,000,000 gallons/year
Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

Area needed: 137,970,000,000 gallons/year / 20,000 gallons/acre/year = 6,898,500 acres = 10,779 sq.mi.

Comparative area: Massachusetts is 10,555 sq.mi.

So, we'd need an area slightly larger than MA to generate the needed biofuel. This may seem like alot, but...

Farmland in US: 922,095,840 acres = 1,440,774 sq. mi.
Source: http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/US.htm

Percent farmland to convert to biofuel: 10,555 sq. mi. / 1,440,774 sq. mi. = 0.73%

This isn't much, if you ask me.

Now, for the financial incentive to do so:

Value of 20,000 gallons of biofuel at $50/barrel: 20,000 gallons = 476 barrels * $50/barrel = $23,000

Corn yield of one acre: 162 bushels/acres (Iowa)
Source: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/pdf/a1-14.pdf

Value of 162 bushels of corn: 162 bushels * $4.77/bushel (Estimated 2008 Calendar Year Average) = $772.74
Source: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/pdf/a2-11.pdf

So, converting one acre of corn farmland to one acre of biofuel farmland will increase the revenue from $773 to $23,000, a nearly 30-fold increase.

So, this looks like it might be worth it depending on the cost of conversion and cost versus revenue. It'll certainly be interesting to watch.