American's not ready to fix energy woes!!

[4dsc]

How F*cking true!! We will die by the car!! We will never change!! We are only kidding ourselves!!


"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing ... after they have exhausted all other possibilities."
—widely attributed to Winston Churchill

On energy, we're disproving even this cynical axiom. Our main energy problem is our huge dependence on imported oil.

For years, some remedies have been obvious: Tax oil heavily to spur Americans to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles and to drive a bit less, raise sharply the government's fuel economy standards so those vehicles are available, and allow more oil and gas drilling. In recent years, we've done none of these things. It's doubtful we will anytime soon. "Other possibilities" seem inexhaustible.

Under present policies, U.S. oil demand will expand 34 percent by 2030, the Energy Department projects. There will be more people, cars, planes and travel. Imports would satisfy all of the increase. We should try to prevent or minimize that. With China and India's oil demand increasing, American restraint would relax pressure on prices and reduce oil's usefulness as a political weapon. Consuming 25 percent of world oil, we're hardly powerless. But instead of doing what we might, we're awash in delusions.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15319059/site/newsweek/

[Norbu]

1. algae biofuels is the only solution, morons

here's the Mother of All Biofuels Debate thread on peakoil.com

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic9003-765.html

I addressed the doubts to the algae biofuel solution, but you have to sift through the idiocies of the other posters on the thread

[4dsc]

2. interesting

Monteqest called you out on this one and failed to respond adaquately..

The title heading is Resource Projections and Microalgae Biodiesel R&D



There are several arguments for and against a U.S. microalgae biodiesel R&D program. One of the more important, and perhaps contentious, issues, is the potential impact of such technologies on U.S. energy supplies, specifically liquid transportation fuels. The review in Section III.C. of the NREL resource analyses for microalgae biodiesel concluded that there is a potential for production of several quads (1015 Btu) of biodiesel fuels in the southwestern United States alone.

However, as stated earlier, it will be difficult to find many locations where all the resources required for microalgae cultivation, flatland, brackish or waste waters, and low-cost CO2 supplies, are all available in juxtaposition. And, as also pointed out, the southwestern United States is not the ideal climatic location for such systems. For both these reasons, the resource potential estimated by these resource studies must be significantly discounted.
In the case of utilization of power plant CO2, diurnal and seasonal factors would restrict direct CO2 (e.g., flue gas) utilization to about one-third of the power plant CO2. Even with CO2 capture and transportation (which greatly increases costs), only about half of the CO2 would be useable.

With most coal-fired power plants located in the north, or in otherwise unfavorable climates, only a rather small fraction of power plant CO2 resources would likely be captured with microalgae systems in the United States.

A conservative estimate is that microalgae systems would be able to mitigate, directly or indirectly, perhaps only about 1% of current power plant CO2 emissions, supplying an approximately equivalent amount of current transportation fuels.

[lapfog_1]

5. OK,I'll take a whack at it...

First, as a former resident of Arizona, there certainly are plenty of areas which have the needed
resources of flat land, water (most proposals are for nearly sealed bioreactors, so water resources
are not nearly as severe as the New Mexico NREL studies suggest). As for sources of CO2, there is
no requirement to SUPPLY the bioreactors with anything other than atmospheric amounts of CO2. Having
an electric plant nearby to feed CO2 is a definite benefit to yields, but significant yields can be
achieved without the supply of external CO2.

The NREL studies looked at over 3000 different strains of algae and other micro-organisms, a great
many are suitable for biodiesel production, depending on the environment (temperature, sunlight, etc).
Depending on the area selected for production, different strains of algae will do better than others.
The biggest problem is that a sealed environment (where the atmosphere is filtered before introduction
to the bioreactor) may be required due to native species of algae (windblown spores) out-competing
the desired strain. This will drive up the cost of the production of vegetable oil, but not nearly
as high as some posters on the thread in question claim.

In any event, when compared to the other biofuels oil production per acre... algae is a clear winner.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html

Crop US gal/acre
corn (maize) 18
cashew nut 19
oats 23
lupine 25
kenaf 29
calendula 33
cotton 35
hemp 39
soybean 48
coffee 49
linseed (flax) 51
hazelnuts 51
euphorbia 56
pumpkin seed 57
coriander 57
mustard seed 61
camelina 62
sesame 74
safflower 83
rice 88
tung oil tree 100
sunflowers 102
cocoa (cacao) 110
peanuts 113
opium poppy 124
rapeseed 127
olives 129
castor beans 151
pecan nuts 191
jojoba 194
jatropha 202
macadamia nuts 240
brazil nuts 255
avocado 282
coconut 287
oil palm 635

Algae, from the NREL study, can produce from 5,000 gal/acre to 20,000 gal/acre, which dominates the
other candidates on this list. Not to mention that algae is very picky about the water supply,
and can be used with sewage and brackish (salty) water.

In addition, the amount of energy needed to grow 5000 gallons/acre/year of algae would need to be
compared to the amount needed to grow 5000 gallons/N acres/year of other biodiesel crops. I suspect,
but haven't seen the studies, that the amount of energy needed for the equivalent amount of diesel
fuel is much, much less (no tractors, no fertilizer, just a water pump and oil press).

[brokensymmetry]

6. Hmm?

Let's see now. You said:

Algae, from the NREL study, can produce from 5,000 gal/acre to 20,000 gal/acre, which dominates the
other candidates on this list.

5,000 gallons should be worth, say, $50 per barrel, right? So one acre can
produce $250,000 per year, less expenses.

The land should be cheap. If all we need is sewage, the water should be cheap.
If all that's needed is atmospheric CO2, the air should be free.

So...why doesn't some bright company buy 100 acres and make a quick $25,000,000
per year?

The fact that they aren't is suggestive.

[lapfog_1]

8. So your argument is... because people aren't doing it

it must be a bad idea... right?

your analysis on the profitability is rather simple.

You need acreage, you need to build acres and acres worth of sealed bioreactors, you will need a
water supply, you will need a very good air filtration system (to keep out native spores), you
will need pumps and presses and so on.

The NREL research was more focused on carbon sequestration not on oil production.
But... if you doubt my numbers or have something else other than "well if it's so good, why isn't
everyone doing it", please post links to the rebuttal studies.

And, oh yeah, BTW... there are a number of companies doing this right now.

[brokensymmetry]

9. Really?

You said: And, oh yeah, BTW... there are a number of companies doing this right now.

Perhaps you'd have a link or two you could share? Their numbers would be
most useful.

[lapfog_1]

11. Thought you folks could google as well as I can

Anyway...

here is a partial list

Aquaflow Bionomic Corp, New Zealand (currently producing in Marlborough, NZ, soon to set up a US subsidiary)

Veridium Corp. (still in experimental stages)

GreenFuel Technologies

Solazyme

Blue Planet Biofuels, Inc.

I believe that there are other that i've run across, but after only two pages of google output,
this is the list.

[Norbu]

13. what is there to respond to?

you tell me what you think this says

[Odin2005]

3. I got fed up with that site.

I used to post there, but the doomers are so sure of themselves they won't hear anything contrary to thier nightmares. The poster MonteQuest got on my nerves when he continued to spew BS based on misunderstandings of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

[lapfog_1]

4. I, too, am a supporter of algae biodiesel fuels

for a number of reasons...

But the thread you referenced is certainly not the mother of all biofuels debates.

You didn't back up your assertions with referenced material and easy to follow numbers.
You didn't state your credentials (though I would argue that nobody else on the thread
did either, and while credentials are important, they certainly don't decide a debate).

You did little to actually get other to believe in an algae solution.

[silverweb]

7. There's no such thing as an "ONLY" solution.

It will take ongoing R&D with implementation of a wide range of alternative energy sources to solve our woes. No one answer is adequate to meet the challenge.

[ramapo]

10. So right

Some behavioral changes will be needed too. Won't happy until we're in dire shit too deep to ignore.

[4dsc]

12. Some??

I don't think even massive cultural changes are going to change what happens in this country. It tooks a couple of decades to get us into being "consumers" and that's not going to change soon!!

the sooner we use all the oil the better..

[Norbu]

14. billions are poured into dead end technologies

... while funding is COMPLETELY cut off for algae biodiesel research based on the LIE that oil and natural gas prices (which it would compete with) are DECLINING rather than SKYROCKETING

it says it right there in the 1996 NREL report

tens and hundreds of billions of dollars poured into extreme environment drilling for oil and natural gas, non-workable agribusiness-friendly feedstock like corn and soy, an electrical infrastructure, and minor but flashy mitigation efforts around coal and natural gas burning

why? are you part of the media problem or part of the solution?