Posted on 02/27/2011 11:30:05 AM PST by kingattax
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A Massachusetts biotechnology company says it can produce the fuel that runs Jaguars and jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow.
Joule Unlimited has invented a genetically-engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company says it can manipulate the organism to produce the renewable fuels on demand at unprecedented rates, and can do it in facilities large and small at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels.
What can it mean? No less than "energy independence," Joule's web site tells the world, even if the world's not quite convinced.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
actually, the organism they are using is algae.
and the ease of which this is done by genetic manipulation is now days very simple.
anyone want to chat about it , pm me.
we planned to use the same tech to scrub coal fired power plant sox, pox, nox.
EL
A while back when gas went into the high four dollar range there were some inventive folks who came up with a modification. They pre-heated the fuel so it became a gas before entering the carb. It increased their gas mileage. I don’t know how much but it seemed like a fifteen fold increase.
They are probably able to do it only in very small quantities. One hopes that it could be scaled up to useful amounts....
If true, they would need current energy sources at first to pump water and do whatever separation they need, but once they are producing, they can burn their own fuel and not need fossil fuel energy.
So then part of their production has to be used for production which lessens the output. Still in all though, they’d have to produce millions of gallons of the stuff for the US economy to survive on it. Then too, you’d have to use the product to transport the product. Anything involved with production and transportation has to be with that product. No fair using bio-fuels like ethanol.
What they probably mean is the power plants can run on their stuff and they can suck in the CO2 from the stacks and have the /bactera/sun turn it into more non-fossil fuel to run the power plant.
Also, remember this article was most likely written by a journalist, not a scientist, so all details are questionable.
But some of that energy is FREE. The sun. If you plant an oak tree and do nothing to it for a number of years, you can cut it down and burn it and get more energy out of it than you used to plant it and cut it. Same situation here.
The other morning, my sidewalk was covered with a thin layer of snow. The sun came out and melted it even though it was below freezing. For free. No salt, no physical labor, no snowblower.
Great. IF this were to be true, just think of the environmental damage when the organism gets loose.
All true. And some of those are also true of fossil origin gasoline, as well. But any country that currently has to import oil is still ahead on the deal even if they can't produce all of their needs. If these Joule folks can really produce it ready to burn in vehicles for $30 a barrel, anyone who bought it would be way ahead of a guy who is buying crude oil at $100 a barrel.I, too, am a wait and see guy, but every once in a while, something new AND good comes along. We'll see.
That’s the point.
As for the oil companies buying it up and shelving it that is absurd. The best way to increase profits is to cut costs and become more efficient. If the oil companies had a way to produce already refined diesel without huge refineries, fleets of oil tankers, oil drilling rigs, huge exploration and development costs they could sell gas at a lower cost and still make even bigger profits.
I agree that if this is real and not a bunch of hype it will be the environmentalists and the left who will try to stop it. There motive has never been to save the environment but to destroy freedom and progress. They are motivated by hatred for man, this Earth, and existence. They will attack anything that make man's life better and allows men to succeed and achieve. Oil is the most efficient and cost effective fuel we have right now and is the engine of economic growth. It's no wonder they hate it so much.
“based company says it can manipulate the organism”
This is nothing new and many companies have been working for years to genetically engineer organisms to produce fuel. Sooner or later someone will, when has been the question on the minds of many people following this for years.
No, the oval eel companies.
TWB
Use the open ocean. Algae floats. The first oil industry, whaling, was really an algae harvesting technology.
Use the open ocean. Algae floats. The first oil industry, whaling, was really an algae harvesting technology.
Nope. Gas engines are about 25% efficient, meaning they extract about a quarter of the energy generated by burning the fuel. So you could get, in theory, a fourfold increase in mileage. No more, though, and much less in reality.
Ethanol = C2H6O
Diesel = in various combinations of n = 8 to 21
-- CnH(2n+2)
-- CnH(2n+1)
-- CnH(2n)
Goodbye foreign oil, hello snake oil.
ping
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.