[Red Badger]

Now when someone calls you scum, you just say, "Thank You!" and smile........

[Red Badger]

Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.......

If you want on or off the DIESEL "KNOCK" LIST just FReepmail me........

This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days......

[WideGlide]

They're going to make something at the brewery and only charge $2.68 per gallon for it? Where's my straw?

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I wonder if diesel fuel can be made from the stock certificates of bankrupt IPOs?

[Jeff Chandler]

"We're facing two global challenges: depletion of our petroleum reserves and a buildup of greenhouse gases," said Bryan Willson, director of CSU's Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory.

Might as well play along. There's gold in them there lies.

[Argus]

"Soylent Green is PEOPLE!"

[thackney]

BTTT

[alloysteel]

Algae to Diesel fuel - how extraordinary.

Now it is not unheard of that Diesel fuel can get bacterial infestations, that turn the fuel back into some sort of gunk that absolutely cannot be sent through injector needles, or burn well if it does ignite.

Thermal depolymerization still has a lot of positives to recommend it. Even the extraction of oil shale seems to be a less difficult way to obtain energy. But this method of using algae to create the Diesel fuel might have some marginal value as a way to utilize what would otherwise be discarded byproducts (CO2 and heat).

[taxcontrol]

The process is expected to yield 8,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre

... per ... what? year, month, week, hour?

annually I suspect. Now lets see, the estimated demand for diesel is 2 to 3 million barrels per day. At 55 gallons per barrel that would give us a rough working number of about 125 million gallons per day (or roughly 45 Billion gallons/year). At 8,000 gallons per acre per year... we would need about 5.6 million acres to replace the exiting production.

That would be covered by a space of 100 miles by 100 miles (6.4 million acres - assuming some loss due to pipes, roads, power lines, etc). You could fit that inside Kansas or Oklahoma and still have room to spare. Heck, with some additional work I'm sure you could even put up some locations in the desert southwest and not cut into valuable farm land.

Not bad, at least far better than turning a land mass the size of Texas into soybean or peanuts for oil production.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Ironically, phosphates were removed from laundry soap, in large part because they're such good fertilizer for algae.

[dennisw]

This algae to diesel stuff is strictly vanity projects. If you want diesel then dig up clean Western coal and via liquefaction convert it into diesel, jet fuel and heating oil. Other heavier products come out too such as tar.

[dennisw]

Solix founder Jim Sears said algae can produce as much as 100 times more oil per acre than soy and canola.

I've followed the health food biz for decades and there were claims that spirulina would feed the starving world. Building algae ponds just doesn't seem to compute. Spirulina is never less than $25/lb. So much for a mass solution to starvation.

Algae researchers have been stumped by two problems: invasion of high-oil-content algae by low-oil indigenous versions, and the costs of regulating temperatures in ponds.

This must plague those who grow health food store algae. Lots of which is grown in Hawaii

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Sounds good. Along with solar energy, wind, coal, and our own oil drilled wherever we can (no thanks to envirowhackos), and other things, we can kick the Middle East terror-funding oil habit. And the Hugo Chavez oil habit while we're at it. :-)