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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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If you drive a diesel vehicle in the Bay Area, you may have noticed something a little different at your Propel Fuels station. For the first time, Propel has started selling a biodiesel blend partially made from algae.
That's right. A photosynthetic microorganism was turned into fuel without having to die, be buried in sediment and cooked by eons of geologic processes into petroleum. Instead, the company Solazyme simply grows its algae in the dark, on a sugar diet. Starved of light, the algae digest sugar and produce oil, which the company harvests.
It's all part of an ongoing effort to make low-carbon fuels to replace diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. The idea is simple: the algae or other plants suck up CO2 when they grow, the same CO2 that is released when the fuel made from the algae is burned. So there's no net addition of the greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.
Solazyme is hardly alone. Companies like Kior and Ineos are using chemical and biological methods to turn wood into fuel. And experimental algae farms are springing up in San Diego and the deserts of New Mexico. The fuel of the future might not need epochs worth of fossilized sunshine, fulfilling some of the promise of advanced biofuels.
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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9 Comments
Add CommentExperiments are fine but production subsidies a waste.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can already make synfuels like diesel from nuclear hydrogen at a 30% the cost of petrol, using the Shell's Qatar GTL plant and skipping the energy intensive methane to hydrogen/carbon monoxide stage.
The only thing in the way is Big Oil's well justified fear of nuclear power taking it out business. It pays our 100% corrupt politicians and media like SCIAM, to put roadblocks in front of nuclear power at every opportunity.
It has no fear of algae biofuels. There really is no need to waste time and treasure on them in the war against the unrecoverable fast approaching climate precipice.
Big oil companies are investing in Biomass Pyrolysis companies. This could eliminate some 10% to 40% of excess atmospheric CO2 by 2100, depending on whether the retorts are used to produce biofuels or Hydrogen and biochar. Pyrolysis is economical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe big question now is how to remove the remaining 60%, and CCS at power plants would appear to be the only possibility in the medium term.
The problem with all biofuels is the same, using what would be food for humans or land for agriculture. Although the effect is somewhat mitigated by the fact most starving humans are that way because of tyrants, thugs and ridiculous 10th century cultures but still the effect of biofuels on the food supply does exist. Sugar has to come from somewhere and that source is typically human edible food. Now if the algae could grow off of scrub, weeds or other biomass that grows on otherwise unusable land then maybe we have something. That said, this is more promising than ethanol which is a total waste of money and time, not to mention inflating the price of corn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not sure how vast stretches of ocean converted into algae farms is somehow less of an environmental hazard than an oil well though. What if the massive farms have a disaster and all kinds of unnaturally existing algae escapes into the wild. Unnatural by the sheer volume of algae that would be artificially greater than normal assuming no genetic modification happens, not to mention all the bio oil potentially damaging something. Maybe bio oil is not as toxic as petroleum but a farm producing a half million barrels a day will have concentrations of this bio oil so high that any accident will damage the environment.
Plus in the end, there would be little change in CO2 output, so the warmists will continue to push their regulations and taxation in the name of their prophecy.
The burning various chemicals with oxygen to produce energy systems we have today or are developing, really just need to go. Oil, coal, bio fuel, bio mass, trash, whatever it is, if we have to burn it to get anything out of it, it is probably not a long term solution for energy production.
Evil big oil fear what? Maybe you dont understand capitalism. Big oil would just buy the nuclear companies not fear them and try to suppress energy options. Nuclear, Oil, Coal whatever they are all energy companies and everyone of these corporations knows if anyone comes up with a winning fuel, they will have it to market instantly because they could charge 2 to 4 times more for it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow everything said about the evil politicians is right on at least as far as blocking all energy sources not because of being paid off by big oil, the parasite politicians know that pollution, fantasy global warming, current fuels and etc... all give politicians power and money. For every dollar exxon made, the politicians got 3 dollars. With that kind of money on the line, the politicians will block every attempt to get off of oil.
Lets not promote CCS or better Oxygen capture. It is simply a bad idea to bury those 2 atmospheric oxygen atoms in the ground with the carbon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTis you who don't understand capitalism my son.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig Oil has $tens of trillions in investment in oil in the ground and it ain't letting nukes put that in jeopardy.
It can't can buy the nuke companies because the big ones are state actors that would just take the place of the ones they purchased and shut down.
Massive Big Oil donations to politicians are matter of record.
Big Oil hasn't been good at building factory products and stays out of that business. They don't build the gas turbines that burn their natural gas. They don't build the vehicles that burn their gasoline & diesel. They know they would fail miserably at any manufacturing enterprise because the competition would eat them up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo unlike, commodities - Oil, Gas & Coal - Nuclear & Hydro are industrial manufactured goods - so Big Oil wisely stays out of that business. True, Nuclear does use Uranium fuel but it is a trivial part of the levelized cost of Nuclear.
Fact is, if Big Oil went Nuclear, they would lose their shirt because they are basically spoiled and incompetent and could not compete in a manufacturing industry. They survive because they buy politicians, governments, bureaucrats and in turn get obscenely profitable Oil & Gas leases, get free military protection, get Oil wars fought free of charge for their benefit and consequently pump Oil out of the ground off of their cushy leases, like they got in Iraq, for $4 per barrel, and sell it on World markets for $90-$150 per barrel. You would never get profits like that on a manufactured product that you had to compete on a free market with other producers.
Oil and to a lesser extent Gas is the epitome of a socialist or even communist captured market. The only capitalism at play there is the capitalist's ability to buy government, buy ENGO's, buy Media, buy Bureaucrats and anyone else to suppress their competition. Which they DO, and are incredibly successful at it.
In the wake of debate between Food Vs Fuel, there is mounting pressure on biofuel from Sugarcane and Corn. Fortunately nature offers Alternative inputs. There is Agave which is a care-free growth plant. Biofuel can be extracted from this. Mexico is already doing this. Many of the developing countries can growth is in Waste and vacant lands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother option is Biogas from OPUNTIA another care-free growth plant. Biogas and subsequent power generation from Opuntia offers promise for Developing countries. Both these plants are CAM.As the CO2 content of the air progressively declined millions of years ago, certain plants evolved specialized biochemical pathways and anatomical adaptations that enabled them to increase their intracellular CO2 concentration at the site of its fixation, which allowed the primary carboxylating enzyme rubisco to function more efficiently. The CO2 concentrating mechanism possessed by these CAM plants operates by sequentially reducing CO2 into carbohydrates at two different times of day. The initial reduction of CO2 into a four-carbon sugar is done at night - when CAM plant stomata are open - by the enzyme PEP-carboxylase. Then, during the day when CAM plant stomata are closed, the four-carbon sugar is decarboxylated, increasing the plant's intercellular CO2 concentration, and the resulting CO2 is subsequently reduced back into a carbohydrate, but this time by rubisco.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore (AP), India
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com
Priddseren : The 'International Biochar Initiative', coordinating body for Biomass Pyrolysis recommends that no foodstuffs be converted into biofuels. Pyrolysis means that any organic matter , including agricultural residues can be transformed into hydrogen & charcoal, or biogas or biofuels. Current biofuels use corn or rapeseed oils, but pyrolysis can use agricultural residues, chicken feathers, or whatever. Pyrolysis is economically viable, which is why big oil companies are now investing heavily in the technology. Look up the IBI website to get a list of start-ups using biomass pyrolysis. See www.eprida.com for details.
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