Posted on 11/29/2007 3:24:45 PM PST by decimon
Al Gore and the Green Al "G"ees
They mindfully revel in that half empty glass don't they?
ROTFLMAO!
We the people defending our way of life in a concerning way and creating and supporting the DOD via hard earned labor perhaps.
That would be about a third of a gallon per square foot. That would be the equivalent of a layer of oil about 1/2" thick.
But I want to see this algea work. Because if we can find a way to make vats of algea make diesel, we can also fine a way to make vats of algea make medicines. And special plastics. And carbon nano-fibers. And electronic chips. And things no one has thought of yet, but we will.
And it will happen from raw material we flush down toilets and toss in the kitchen trash.
That is the THEORETICAL amount. I believe that the more realistic number is about 6,000 gallons. But it is still about 10 times as much as soybeans.
Proved and efficient.
Actually, the transistor was initially produced pretty cheaply for the early AM Transistor radios in the '50s. Of course, Military involvement during the 'Space-Race' led to 'integrated-circuits' or 'chips' as we call them today, and made possible these computer-thingys that I'm using right now.
$20/gallon is indeed a great starting point, but only if Americans are forced to pay that much because the enviro-weenies keep stopping the USA from building more refineries, drilling for our own oil, building nuclear power plants, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
The name-of-the-game is 'Energy', and right now, we're using-up the Middle-Eastern oil, and it's costing more because of increased world demand. In spite of all the brouha raised over 'renewable' fuels, fossil fuels will remain the way of the foreseeable future.
Trying to cram trees and shrubs into gas tanks is stupid as long as there's plenty of oil to be drilled and coal to be mined. Cramming corn into our gas tanks is selfish beyond belief, and borders on being criminal if there are hungry people anywhere in the world. Corn is food! ................................... FRegards
Only if you're the algore. And then we'll give you another award ... maybe the 'Hasty Pudding' or something - whatever that is ................................ FRegards
Partly correct. Price is one aspect, but scale is probably more important.
There are a lot of things that can be done and will be done that can add to the world's energy supplies. Most of these work best on a relatively small scale. Collective the result is probably more along the lines of a volume of silver BBs not silver bullets if the desired result is liquid fuels.
Your example of sewage sludge is a classic. Yes we can make some usable hydrocarbon based fuel from sludge ... but as full of crap as people are, we aren't going to run California on it. And methane [a gas] is the most economic end product not oil.
1,000 barrels a second. 86 million barrels a day. A barrel per day of Canadian tar sand based oil starts with $60,000 to $100,000 dollars of fixed investment per daily barrel of production. Then a lot of energy is added in terms of diesel to mine and transport the stuff and whole lot of natural gas is consumed to heat the bitumen and provide a bunch of hydrogen atoms to make the resulting mess into something resembling crude oil. This process is so capital, water and energy intensive that it in spite of large deposits and the undeniable ability to extract a positive energy return on the energy invested it simply isn't going to translate into the daily production needed to replace convention oil.
One last thing. Peak oil advocates do not assume that oil is all there is in the way of potential energy sources. [There are doomers who think that we are doomed no matter what, but that is pessimism not peak oil theory.] What peak oil advocates agree on is that at some point it will be impossible or at least wildly unfeasible to extract oil in volumes beyond that peak level and that thereafter there will be an irreversible decline in oil production. Whether the peak has already happened [some believe that it occurred in 2005 as crude oil and lease condensate have been declining during the intervening period] or whether CERA is correct and the peak won't occur for more than 20 years, is open to debate.
Most of the worlds oil fields and oil provinces are probably past peak now. Many will continue to produce oil long after we are all dead ... just at lower and lower levels.
For what it's worth, algae appears to have potential. I hope it works.
Phosphates do the trick for algae proliferation. . . that is what happens to my pool every summer.
The article I got the $1,000 figure from was referring to integrated circuits: High-tech culture of Silicon Valley originally formed around radio It mentions how the DoD was the technology driver, as it usually is, and therefore the origin of our modern life today. America would have been an average wealth country today if not for our large investments in defense technology in the 50s and 60s.
>What’s this “fuss” energy you refer to? ; )<
The nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert.
Sewage sludge is but one of many sources of hydrocarbons that presently are in an unusable form and given the right economic conditions could be converted into usable fuels that would compete in the marketplace with fuels from other sources.
The company that right now is converting the waste from processing turnkeys in Carthage, Missouri with their proprietary Thermal Conversion Process stated a few years ago that their pilot plant had successfully processed sewage sludge into liquid fuel roughly equivalent to diesel fuel.
Based on that experience, they (not me) estimated that if all the sewage sludge produced in the US were converted using their process, it would produce enough fuel to totally eliminate the need for foreign imports. Even if they are wrong by a factor of two or three, that is still a lot of fuel.
When that outfit [or anyone else using a thermal de-polymerization produce a hundred thousand barrels a day net [about one tenth of one percent of current oil consumption], give me a ping. Heck, when they produce ten thousand barrels a day gross give me a ping.
Some extremely large dairy farms are producing enough methane to run a few thousand houses. I applaud them, but I would like to reiterate: As full of crap as people [and cows] are, we aren't going to run our civilization on sewage sludge or cow manure.
Oil is simply a wonderful thing. Liquid. Energy dense. Producible in vast quantities at the price of a few thousand feet of 8 inch hole, casing and tubing. However, it won’t last for ever and the alternatives are all going to cost us. In your lifetime or the lifetime of your kids, the age of oil is going to end. Maybe very soon [my belief] maybe a few years in the future. Get over it.If you want to direct your optimism in a more realistic direction, try nukes, more coal fired electric generation, wind, photo voltaics, wind or simply more efficient consumption patterns based on higher prices.
Yeah, the DoD was and is the driver in many industries. I remember paying about $10 apiece for 3 transistors for a kit-radio in 1959, and bought a complete 6 transistor radio for $60 in 1960.
Sputnik scared the crap out of everyone, and we got these neat toys today! Tomorrow - who knows ........................ FRegards
As long as it doesn't contribute to global warming, AlGore should be okay with it and since it's as natural as the sun, the carbon credits should rack up considerably.
Sorry about your needing to be sorry, but I was simply elaborating a general principle of economics- substitution, and used this tiny operation as an example of what is possible.
The management of the Carthage plant in fact did state they are making money in an article in Discovery:
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