Posted on 11/28/2007 9:56:31 AM PST by cogitator
And note that it is very possible to make alcohol from coal -- and we have a lot of coal in the U.S. Being me, I'd prefer bio-ethanol, but I'm also pragmatically realistic.
Butanol. BioDiesel from algae. Stockpile fuel and then cut use to 50% for a few months.
Ping to self for later read.
What will finally end OPEC’s cartel will be oil-laden algae grown on a huge scale that will produce enormous amounts of diesel fuel, heating oil and kerosene. That right there could cut OPEC’s marketshare by 40% or more.
I like it, on first blush. I’m not convinced it’s as easy as mandating flex-fuel vehicles, but if it is, then I’m in. Even if it costs me more due to a loss of efficiency I would be willing to comply in order to break Opec.
Interesting. I’ve tried BioSiesel and it works fine in the Spring, Summer and Fall. Mixtures up to 20% work in the winter. BioDiesel price seems to follow PetroDiesel prices quite closely.
How about let’s build a bunch of nuclear plants and also drill for our own oil? ANWR and 85% of our coastline is off-limits.
THat’s fine, but we still need to drill our own oil.
OPEC’s real power is not holding oil cost at $100 but being able to sell at $20 and make all the other systems non profitable.
Who is going to spend billions to make a replacement for OPEC oil when at any time they can run the price down to nothing and make you loose all your investment?
We can regain some control by drilling our for our own oil and thus stopping oil from going to $200 ever but it is a lot harder to stop the price from going to $20 without total goverment control.
I’m not sure I trust our goverment with that much control.
That's because it's a direct replacement for diesel, and therefore fungible.
Having said that, I need to read this book.
I share you sentiments about the gov controls but what if the amount of imports were fixed? That would seem to guarantee the need to produce domestically without dropping below current import levels.
That would ensure that oil would have a reasonable ceiling, it would provide government revenue, and it would protect the alternarive energy investments of American entrepreneurs.
"David James, who operates Eastwood Christian School east of Opelika, met LeBlanc during a Montgomery meeting on substitute fuels. The gathering at a state economic development agency led to a partnership and Alabama's place atop the algae-based fuel industry, James said."
--after that occurs, we should get going with nuclear power plants and coal conversion technology---
Even if the world was covered in sugar cane, it would take more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than the gal of ethanol contained. It is a self defeating task or a fools errand.
The guy in this article doesn’t know what he taking about.
http://www.greatchange.org/bb-alcohol2.html
The best solution has three elements: it MUST be inexpensive, it MUST be efficient, and it MUST use known, developed and commonly available technologies.
Alcohol fails in all three areas. It is expensive to create as a fuel. It has only half the energy of gasoline. And there is no alcohol engine technology that can compare to the gasoline engine.
However, what passes all three tests is biodiesel. It can be produced through a multitude of means. It has about 96% of the energy of petroleum diesel. And diesel engines are already in wide use, even in automobiles. And it is a *scalable* fuel, able to run everything from a small car to a railroad engine, to a large ship.
I am especially bullish on biodiesel produced by algae. It can be in continual production most of the year in most of the US, not the 90 day, twice a year corn crop used for most ethanol. And algae production can be multiplied by using industrial carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides, turning an expensive to dispose of waste product into profit and fuel.
Large, shallow water “trough farms” with continuous production and automatic harvest of algae, covered with the new “self-cleaning” glass to trap the CO2 and NOx gasses in the tanks after being bubbled into the water, and to keep out undesired algae strains. Soon there would be mountains of algae for easy processing into both biodiesel and some ethanol. Some algae are as much as 50% vegetable oil.
The size of land needed for fuel for the entire US is estimated at only about 800 square miles. Compare that to the over 700,000 square miles the US uses for agricultural crops! And that area would be broken up in many farms in mostly the southern US. Most would be located near the major CO2 and NOx producing industries, if possible.
Biodiesel burns cleanly, and doesn’t produce the noxious odor of petroleum diesel. In large scale production, America would have more energy and cheaper than with petroleum. And best of all, if the price of petroleum diesel dropped, the engines using biodiesel could use it as well.
Further information:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
“...”David James, who operates Eastwood Christian School east of Opelika...”
Yes that’s it. I saw the set up. The school and the alternative fuel operation are sort of mixed together in an inefficient and confused way. It cries for an old-fashioned efficiency expert. Yet they claim the bio diesel production cost is way below commercial diesel prices.
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