NY Times: Algae Emerges as a Potential Fuel Source

[NNadir]

Now, I could be wrong about this, but I thought that maybe, could be, possibly, I may have heard somewhere at sometime from someone that algae based biodiesel was going to save our car culture (and Walmart), but apparently it's brand new news at the New York Times:

ST. PAUL, Dec. 1 (AP) — The 16 big flasks of bubbling bright green liquids in Roger Ruan’s laboratory at the University of Minnesota are part of a new boom in renewable energy research.

Driven by renewed investment as oil prices push $100 a barrel, Dr. Ruan and scores of scientists around the world are racing to turn algae into a commercially viable energy source.

Some algae is as much as 50 percent oil that can be converted into biodiesel or jet fuel. The biggest challenge is cutting the cost of production, which by one Defense Department estimate is running more than $20 a gallon.

“If you can get algae oils down below $2 a gallon, then you’ll be where you need to be,” said Jennifer Holmgren, director of the renewable fuels unit of UOP, an energy subsidiary of Honeywell International. “And there’s a lot of people who think you can.”

Only $18/gallon to go before we're competitive, and, as always, "there's a lot of people who think you can" do that.

There are also a lot of people who think Jesus will return to judge all men and maybe some women too, but that's not my business.

You can grow it anywhere!!!!!

At sea. In your backyard. On your roof, even if its one of the brazillion solar roofs in Southern California.

God bless the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/us/02algae.html?ref=todayspaper

Ever since they convinced us through Judy Miller/Scooter Libby's good graces to kill Iraqis because they were signing uranium contracts, they've been all over environmental issues, including those that little Tommy Friedman tells us all about.

[Ravy]

1. That's it!

I am never cleaning my fish tank, again.

[phantom power]

2. Canfield oceans have lots of algae.

That means we're saved, right?

[AlecBGreen]

3. ah the wonders of capitalism

tell me NNadir, how much would a computer like yours cost 10 years ago (assuming they could build it)? Ten times as much as what you paid for it? Dell makes desktops for $500. I bought my old computer in 1998 for damn near $2000 and its a hulking piece of trash at this point.

That fact is, as technology pushes us forward, as demand increases, cost of production drops. What costs $20/gallon today COULD cost $2/gal in 5 years. Hell, it could cost that much in a month if someone makes a breakthrough.

The point is, no-one knows what the future will bring. We should investigate every possible lead.

[losthills]

4. But yet the cost of nuclear plants keeps going up.

Go figure....

[phantom power]

5. It Is Time....

Time to re-post my Explanation About Why Moore's Law Does Not Apply To Energy...

There is a reason that Moore's Law works for computation and not for other technologies. Computation (and data storage) is all about patterns. Patterns of logic gates. To make a computation device faster and cheaper, all you need to do is reduce the size of the pattern. I don't want to belittle the talent and hard work of all the engineers who have made Moore's Law happen for electronics over the last 30 years, but in a sense, the problem stacked in their favor. As long as you can come up with ways to make the logic gate patterns smaller, you get all of the famous benefits of increasing speed, reduced cost and reduced power usage.

Energy production is only very peripherally affected by patterns. There is no Moore's Law for energy technologies. One of the biggest blunders of the 1990s was the erroneous assumption that Moore's Law was somehow going to apply to energy, commerce, the stock market, etc. The "Wired Fallacy."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=86088&mesg_id=86088

[Dead_Parrot]

7. You're not clapping very hard, are you? nt.

[AlecBGreen]

8. Moore's law

a doubling every year, right? Thats besides the point. I am not saying that "fuel prices will be halved every year." Im not saying "solar power capacity will double every year." Here's what I am saying:

As we invest, as we make breakthroughs, as traditional power sources become more costly, as subsidies are reversed, our ability to generate electricty will become both cleaner AND cheaper.

[silverweb]

6. Agreed.

And I wonder... could algae also be dried and formed into pellets (like wood pellets) for use in furnaces, boilers, etc? That way, it wouldn't have to be processed any further, saving additional energy.

The dried algae pellets could be used for a variety of energy needs, including home heating, generating steam for electricity, etc. I'm sure someone has already thought of this, but I haven't read anything about it.

:think:

[NNadir]

11. I have always thought that the economics of cheese predicts well,

the behavior of machine tools.

When my computer prices fell, I immediately went to the furniture store to buy furniture, thinking that furniture must track computers and algae based biodiesel.

[AlecBGreen]

12. I have always thought that intelligent people such as yourself

understood basic economics. INCREASING demand and DECREASING cost of production --> better yields

Try this. Christmas is just around the corner so maybe Santa will be nice this year! I know its not an exajoule, but there's always next year right?

:eyes:

[NNadir]

13. I have always thought that most people over estimate the "laws" of economics.

It is frequently represented that the so called "laws" of economics are the equivalent of the laws of say, physics.

This is not even remotely the case. In general the "laws" of social sciences prove to be much less successful at predicting a world rush to algae based biodiesel (although such a rush has been predicted for decades now) than say, the laws of general relativity have been at predicting the orbit of mercury.

I don't believe in Santa, and I don't believe in God, but if I believed in either, I suspect I would ask, for Christmas, that people stop going through such agony to try to save the Yuppie car culture.

[AlecBGreen]

14. lol

"I would ask, for Christmas, that people stop going through such agony to try to save the Yuppie car culture."

amen to that

[kestrel91316]

15. Do you yourself own a car or use one? EVER?

If you do, kindly stop harping on others about the "Yuppie Car Culture".

Frankly, I suspect YOUR stuff stinks far worse than most of ours. You probably drive a Hummer.

[losthills]

16. He's not allowed to drive.

He's still under court supervision...

[NNadir]

17. I suspect you're just whining.

I have made it clear that I own a car, but that I have also participated in several private revolutions against the internal combustion engine and that I, unlike the anti-nuke hero Amory Lovins, try to walk, bicycle, and use mass transit as much as possible.

I lived 3 years in Los Angeles without ever once setting foot in a car - way back in the 1970s when it was already clear that the car culture was not sustainable - which taught me it could be done. My health at that time, except for the occassions when I was hit by dangerous fossil fuel propelled vehicles, was excellent.

I don't need to justify myself to you. I don't think your computer is solar powered. I suspect it's powered by natural gas or coal and that in fact, you couldn't care less about it.

[jpak]

9. Cool

Thanks for posting.

:hi:

[pscot]

10. You can't really look at this from a dollar cost perspective

The real issue is how much energy input is required to generate the energy produced. Basically we're talking about the product of a biological digestive process. In the third world, cow dung is widely used as fuel. The cow eats grass all day, digests it, excretes the waste, which is then dried by the sun. Et voila, free fuel. Except it's not free. Solar energy and lots of water are needed to make the grass. A live, healthy cow is also required to process the materials. Systems like this are effective at the margins, and are incidental to the primary reasons for keeping a cow.. They offer sustainability at a subsistence level. The problem is scaling such a process up to where it meets the enormous energy demands of our industrial society. We're looking for a perpetual motion device. I'm prepared to be amazed, but it hasn't happened ydet.