IER head: Navy’s biofuels test ‘squandering’ taxpayer dollars

Look it up: all the chemical energy in petroleum originally comes from saltwater algae. The original oil industry ran for thousands of years. It involved an indirect method of harvesting saltwater algae called whaling. It was highly profitable although the ancient technology didn't scale well.
We could replace all our current petroleum needs using less than 2% of the ocean surface. The vast majority of Earth's sun, water, and "farm land" resources is ocean. Pursuing genetically engineered saltwater algae as the main replacement for petroleum seems completely obvious.

Same as man has very little to do with global warming. We are a factor but a very puny one when it comes to CO2 output. You are making the same mistake. Duplicating natures process to make oil from algae will take trillions upon trillions upon trillions dollars of exotic apparatus, bulldozers, drying ponds etc etc. Man cannot deal with these colossal to the nth degree inputs, these colossal to the nth degree masses the way nature can over millions and millions of years

What you propose is much smaller project than digging up Mt Everest and reassembling it in New Delhi India. Think in terms of mass mass mass multiplied by millions x millions of years plus heat and pressure...This is how nature turns algae into oil

These algae projects are a bonanza for cynical scientists to milk billons in Federale funding from the idiots in Congress whom are mostly liberal arts majors and affirmative action women and blacks without an ounce of common sense science education in them

You are making the same mistake. Duplicating natures process to make oil from algae will take trillions upon trillions upon trillions dollars of exotic apparatus, bulldozers, drying ponds etc etc. Man cannot deal with these colossal to the nth degree inputs, these colossal to the nth degree masses the way nature can over millions and millions of years.
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Actually the technology is much much closer to being ready for prime time than you know. But much of the best work is not government funded. In fact, imho a russian investment house is helping to fund the best one which imho is Joule energy. They have a production plant in New Mexico currently that expects to produce diesal for 1.20 a gallon and when they scale up to volume — they say they can get production costs down to .60 a gallon. They’re backed by the best brains in the biz. Here’s a google search of them.
http://bit.ly/S0r3WZ

Comments were negatively speculative just as the article was positively speculative.(see below) Best to hold off judgement until there’s more data available later this year or early next.
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Joule says its systems could produce 15,000 gallons of diesel and 25,000 gallons of ethanol a year on an acre of land, for as little as $20 per barrel-equivalent of diesel and 60 cents per gallon of ethanol.

Since 2010, the company has been operating a pilot plant in Leander, Texas, where it is testing ethanol production. It plans to break ground this month on a larger-scale demonstration facility in New Mexico, with a goal of beginning commercial production by late 2012 or early 2013.

“Scalability and efficiency are open questions, but the concept is great,” says Darlene J.S. Solomon, chief technology officer at Agilent Technologies Inc. A -0.54% and an Innovation Awards judge.

Yeah its the methodology that looks like its a winner.

This article gives the real implications of Joule which are altogether huge—if true.
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2012/07/09/how-joule-may-turn-biofuels-upside-down/

btw much bigger in the energy sector is what’s happening with thorium. The background on that story is just stunning.

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