Plus, a couple of ironies: Government research investment truly seems to have paid off, developing a potential process to free us from the Mideast and, secondly, this does nothing to reduce our so-called 'carbon footprint' (its product is hydrocarbons, regardless its source).
Another irony: They seem to have set out in 2009 to develop an 'algae-to-natural gas' process and discovered 'algae-to-oil' as an unexpected byproduct.
If they can get the cost down, refineries can go full cycle on-site, water being the only real raw material (if I understand it correctly). "Byproducts" & "waste" yet to be determined. Hopefully this stuff has the energy of petroleum-based gasoline.
I'll leave the rest of the speculation to others here.
Peak oil? Yeah, right; so much for that. Peak lithium? Absolutely.
maybe it does not take “millions and millions” of years to make crude oil “naturally” either.
This is “bio-diesel” they’ve been putting in Navy ships?
Probably very uneconomical.
Would be useful to produce fuels off earth though.
If we anticipate a steady stream operation right at the refinery, the first question is; What sort of VOULUME, capacity, output is feasible with such a lash-up? It’s an interesting process, but if it only produces a few gallons of gasoline or jet fuel or whatever per day, what’s the excitement about?
The guy in the video at the link is my BIL. Hubby is pretty proud of his little bro.
All the carbon in the hydrocarbons came out of the atmosphere, so it evens out.
If this will work with kudzu, we are in business.