Biotech breakthrough claim: commercial algae fuel now possible

[CAP1]

since we've moved to diesel discussion.......

http://www.greasecar.com/

[Rash]

Through distillation, gasoline comes before diesel.  The boiling point of diesel is almost twice as much. 

According to the commodity traders, we are on a fine line of ruining out of gas  If an extra 250,000 barrels of day of gasoline get introduced through modern chemistry; that's a lot of excess over a 7 day week, which commodity traders seem to trade per week.

[kotrenin]

You are thinking in a single plane format.  Try seeing the algae farm as a multi-floor building (i.e. the vertical farm concept).

I see what you are saying but I don't think it would work well or be cost effective.  First a 10 story building can cast a 20 story shadow.  Any space behind the building will be deprived of the prime direct sunlight the algae would need to grow, rendering it nearly useless. Look at solar energy farms, they are no more than 1 story tall to avoid blocking their own sun.

Second the algae need water and water needs to be pumped if you want it to reach 10 floors. 

[bozon]

Why can't they just use humans as bio-batteries? It seemed to work well for the machines in matrix. 

[Angus]

Simple as it is, we are going to run out of energy. That's because we use too much

[Ghosth]

Location, location, location!

Kotrenin the problem with your argument is that you assume this is going to be built in the middle of a flat spot.

You could easily build these going up the side of a mountain, get advantage of stacking effect. Get the advantage of their being more acres on a slope. And not worry about blocking anything. Or it could be built on the north side of an Island where it shades only water.

If you build it up the side of a mountain you could probably build catch basins to catch snow/rain, filter it and setup a gravity flow system with no need for pumps.

Near the ocean you might need to use a seawater algae, in which case you just need enough solar cells to power the pumps, not a deal breaker.

There is a LOT of waste land out there that is not suitable for farming, or development.
Those are prime locations for alternative energy production, be it Wind, Solar, or Algae driven.

[kotrenin]

True dat Ghosth, I'm just wondering about the cost of infrastructure, short term versus long term. $30 a dollars a barrel? It's not a chia pet. I think there's going to be a lot involved.

Job creation will be a nice side effect though.

And don't think I'm against this. I just want to make sure this is thought through before we dive head first into the algae pool. 

[Skuzzy]

I see what you are saying but I don't think it would work well or be cost effective.  First a 10 story building can cast a 20 story shadow.  Any space behind the building will be deprived of the prime direct sunlight the algae would need to grow, rendering it nearly useless. Look at solar energy farms, they are no more than 1 story tall to avoid blocking their own sun.
(Image removed from quote.)
Second the algae need water and water needs to be pumped if you want it to reach 10 floors.  

The shadow issue is a non-issue when you can build the farm in the middle of a metropolitan area which is already devoid of anything needing to grow, or in any other location where water is available, but the land itself is not suitable for farming.  Algae does not need much, if any, in the way of UV in order to propogate.

You make the building the water supply tower for the area as well, when you build it in the middle of, or near a metropolitan area.

There are experimental vertical farms in the works now.

[dedalos]

Through distillation, gasoline comes before diesel.  The boiling point of diesel is almost twice as much. 

According to the commodity traders, we are on a fine line of ruining out of gas  If an extra 250,000 barrels of day of gasoline get introduced through modern chemistry; that's a lot of excess over a 7 day week, which commodity traders seem to trade per week.

Hmmm, what exactly do commodity traders have to do with any of this? 

[moot]

1) It's renewable

It needs to source CO2 from the atmosphere. If only from industrial waste and you still have an open ended circuit that outputs to open air.
industrial co2 > joule system > biodiesel > vehicle exhaust

[Tac]

It needs to source CO2 from the atmosphere. If only from industrial waste and you still have an open ended circuit that outputs to open air.
industrial co2 > joule system > biodiesel > vehicle exhaust

I don't follow.

Unless you mean to say we're going to run out of CO2

[moot]

They take carbon from industrial waste. I don't see them mentioning ambient CO2. Not that they must mention it at this stage, because obviously people will be all over it once this Joule scheme works, but it's something that must be done.  Otherwise you only double the time a given carbon spends in the "renewable" cycle. 

Mine coal > burn for E > exhaust ... captured by Joule > bacterial conversion to biodiesel > burn in cars etc > exhaust ... into nature.
                     ^                                                                                                            ^
Arrows point to number of times a carbon is used.  Still a polluting cycle

A microbio acquaintance says alkanes more expensive than articles seems to pretend, and that if the process works there'd be lots of oxygen byproduct.  Can't speak for his credibility but that's his expectation.

[Skuzzy]

Yes moot, but right now the emission of CO2 from coal fueled electric generation plants is just blowing into the atmosphere.  Roughly two thirds of all the CO2 emissions in the U.S. are from those plants.

So capturing it and rerouting it to use as fuel to propel transportation would should serve to cut CO2 emissions.  It is not a perfect solution, but, in theory, it could be a step in the right direction.

Not that it will ever happen, but it is fun to speculate about.

[moot]

Yep it's an improvement. Just noting the scheme as proposed isn't quite green   If it'd work, plenty of people would be all over it to plug it back onto itself for real renewability.

Another reason I mention it is.. One of the old wise people I worked for once noted that it's not enough to give people cheap energy. That usually means not less pollution but that they'll consume even more.  Unless you also supply a de-polluting solution, cheap energy, or not so indirectly, a scheme like this one that's popularized as 'green', the net result is more pollution.

So I expect plugging this Joule cycle back on itself is a Must.

All that's missing is an ambient CO2 capture scheme.  If I were in Joule' PR dep I'd point this out, e.g. "A working Joule scheme leaves only an ambient CO2 capture solution to be devised for the world to go carbon neutral" 

[smoe]

The problem is requiring plenty of sun, carbon dioxide, and water on cheep land? Answer: not many places.

You would think a place like Arizona would be ideal, only problem is the night temperatures. A good solution would be closer to a large body of water. Florida may seem like a good spot; only thing is hurricanes usually blow everything a way. Besides, any land near water is usually expensive.