Re: Bio-Based Fuels

On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 14:56 -0800, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 05:38:49PM -0500, Greg Folkert wrote:
On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 16:22 -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
Bio-fuels *are* a great idea.

Until you realize *how much* gasoline & diesel this country uses
(then add 3x more to that for the rest of the world), and the fact
that stuff like corn ethanol needs lots of (*petrolem* based)
fertilizer.

(However, sugar cane ethanol in Brazil is a *great* idea, because of
cane's higher sugar density, Brazil's proximity to the equator and
lower population).

Based on things I have researched and processing systems I have seen and
actually went through the motions of getting the nitty-gritty on.

Algae based Bio-Diesel. 110,000 square miles of "useless desert" flooded
with salt water and seeded with a certain algae... would supply enough
Biofuel for all vehicles (provided all current vehicles were converted
to diesel) in the US with about a 25% energy return on energy used to
process it and transport to filling centers.

there is an algae that supposedly has something like 80% "oil" content
as that is what makes it float. is this the same stuff?

There is more than one kind, but yes. They are ~80% "Bio-oil". More oil
than any other plant. And they grow like an aggressive virus in a
susceptible sick host.

Basically there is about a 5-7 month ramp up. By the time you harvest
all of the area, you should probably should have started 6 months ago.

We are talking an HUGE up-front cost... and lots of lobbying from Big
Oil and conservationists and so on. If big oil were to realize the
payback and how quickly it would work. The conservationist should have
bigger fish to fry, but they won't.
--
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