Posted on 08/09/2008 6:52:41 AM PDT by LomanBill
Great post bookmark, thanks! And thanks for working in the “evil” oil industry so I can enjoy a modern and independent lifestyle.
Yes, when I was in SD a couple months ago, I listened to farmers in a cafe talking about how some of the community members had been talked into mortgaging their property to “Get in on the boom”.””
I live in a farming community and no farmer I know did that when most of the shares sell at 10K/.
Get rid of the Federal mandate / subsidy and Ethanol demand goes “poof”.
Let the free market decide.””
Problem is that every business with more than 50 employees receives incentives from either the feds, state or local governments. Check into local manufacturing in every small to large city across the nation and you find incentives have been paid to attract and retain businesses. Why do you want to single out the capturing of solar energy by corn famrers as the source of evil incentives unless you have middle east oil interests?
[I live in a farming community and no farmer I know did that when most of the shares sell at 10K/.]
Yep. From the sound of it, some folks had apparently been talked into literally betting the farm on ethanol.
I hope it doesn’t end badly for them; but Leadfield picks and shovels is what it brought to mind.
Not today but China and India are growing and upsetting the oil demand curve and pollution output. It is strategic to develop new cost effective emission neutral replacement technologies. I want to preserve the American way of life.
The reason America is the wealthiest country is because of our investments in new technologies. This is usually driven by military spending because initially only the military can afford new technologies like $100/gallon algae jet fuel. We should cut back on the social spending money pit and invest more in new energy technologies without waiting for a loaded gun to be pointed at us.
We're still riding the technology wave from WWII which brought America great wealth but that wave is 60 years old now. Will it take war with China before we get off our duffs and get serious about our developing oil problem?
[Why do you want to single out the capturing of solar energy by corn famrers as the source of evil incentives unless you have middle east oil interests?]
Because it makes both gas and food more expensive?
Even before ethanol, I never cared for the subsidization of Corn when that meant corn syrup was dumped/hidden in foods to utilize the excess productivity.
Also, the incentives to keep business local is usually absorbed by the community in which the business exists - the community receives a direct benefit there.
Federal mandates and subsidies are not local. I’d be happy if there were NO Federaly mandated subsidies.
The free market should be allowed to work.
Only if it's transparent, and has a large sun-facing surface area relative to its size.
Here's my imaginary version. In the the raised center a field is a sealed algae production unit. This will need to have a fairly significant surface area to produce a significant quantity of algae, but the production there will only be a small fraction of the total.
Algae from that plant will be continuously harvested live, mixed with water, and piped to the end of some spiraling troughs. Similar to what you suggested, the troughs would have CO2 bubbled through them.
There would be a slow but continuous flow of water through the troughs. The diluted algae would grow in the sun and thus become more concentrated when the reached the outer edges of the troughs were they could be harvested. The water flow would have to be fast enough to keep the algae flowing, and the troughs would probably need periodic cleaning even so, but if the algae were only in the trough for a day, I wouldn't think foreign algae would be too much of a problem; they would just get swept up and processed along with all the other trough algae.
I take you think CO2 will be a problem sometime in the future. If so, why?
Right now the technologies we already have are not being fully utilized such as: reprocessing nuclear fuel, using sewage to produce methane gas for electrical generation, solar hot water heaters to provide space heating and hot water. Each one of these would reduce really harmful emissions and reduce (not eliminate) the need for more power plants. These are proven technologies that are available today and would also free up more coal and CNG to be used for motor fuels.
Research into new energy technology is going on and some of it will prove to be impractical or only practical and economical under some circumstances, like wind power.
So I’ll ask: What advantage will algae oil offer in the foreseeable future that is not available already by other means and at lower cost?
Turning coal into gasoline is a far more difficult and expensive process than squeezing fat out of algae. Yes, there will be some economies of scale for coal and oil shale, but algae farming is technologically much simpler "Even sewage to methane gas/oil has the benefit of turning a waste stream into several usable products and there is no shortage of feed stock."
Actually, there is a huge shortage of raw material. Sewage to methane is useful for places like feedlots, where the amount of "raw material" is high, and the need for enery low--and even then it is marginally economical.
"Can you think of one advantage algae oil has that does not exist at lower cost in the use something else?"
Doesn't add fossil CO2 to the atmosphere.
(Law of the Sea Treaty)
Even better, put it inside pipes running vertically in old warehouses. You could use the CO2 from an ethanol plant, and the food source from digested manure outflow.
The methane could be used to provide heat and light for the algae. The ethanol could be used to transesterify the algae oil to fuel.
See post 17 and 60 for examples.
Hello fellow Iowan. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Given that the Valcent process is completely experimental, I suspect that the error bars on the estimate are far larger than for "coal-to-fuel".
"True, the process is more complicated than squeezing algae but we do have a supply of coal on hand for hundreds of years and a process with a proven track record."
I'm not opposed to coal-to-fuel, by any means. I favor ANYTHING that increase the energy supply. But eventually we "will" run out of coal. If we run out of sunlight, we've got a bigger problem.
"Sewage, as in human wastes, might be in short supply around feed lots but the cities have a constant supply and plenty of volume. Probably cheap if anyone wants it."
Sorry, but here I AM skeptical. Exactly how much methane production can be gotten from, say, Pittsburg??? I frankly doubt that it is enough to matter.
"If low CO2 production is only advantage to algae oil then there is no advantage as CO2 is a fine fertilizer for our crops and forests. And the plants that became coal took lots of CO2 from the atmosphere so turning coal into fuel is just returning CO2 from whence it came. More CO2, more plants for food for animals and humans, greener earth, all good."
You asked for an advantage, and I gave it. The people pushing the "global warming agenda" don't buy any of the above. I happen not to be one of those.
"If you think algae oil is the coming thing PetroSun’s stock just shot up to $.15 from $.14/share. And Valcent’s stock is a whopping $.50/share. Do you suppose there's a reason investor aren't snapping up these bargains?"
See my first point about the overall uncertainty about costs and profits.
>>>Only if it’s transparent,
Yep, that’s what I had in mind.
>>and has a large sun-facing surface area
>>relative to its size.
I had in mind large clear tubes which rotated.
>>We won’t have to imagine it; we will live it.
That’s the spirit ;-)
Thumbs Up!
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