Commercial Fuel From Algae Still Years Away 134
chrnb sends along this quote from a report at Reuters:
"Filling your vehicle's tank with fuel made from algae is still as much as a decade away, as the emerging industry faces a series of hurdles to find an economical way to make the biofuel commercially. Estimates on a timeline for a commercial product, and profits, vary from two to 10 years or more. Executives and industry players who gathered at the Algae Biomass Summit this week in San Diego said they need to push for breakthroughs along the entire chain — from identifying the best organisms to developing efficient harvesting methods. ... So far on the list: finding the right strain of algae among thousands of species that will produce high yields; designing systems where the desired algae can multiply and other species don't invade and disrupt the process; and extracting its oils without degrading other parts of the algae that can be made into side products and sold as well."
Well Duh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Several years away...
We've been hearing that for everything, cold fusion, energy storage for electric cars, holographic memory, duke nukem forever... Wake me when we can tell the middle east we won't be needing their product anymore.
What a shock! (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean one of these pie-in-the-sky alternative energy ideas was actually over-hyped and too good to be true!!???? Unbelievable! Next you'll be telling us that there weren't as many "green jobs" as we were promised and that they don't help the economy [bloomberg.com].
What about the power of HOPE? Can I use that to fuel my car?
Inherently Promising (Score:5, Insightful)
The more there are pie-in-the-sky technologies out there that have been researched over many years, the more promising and immediately useful (if currently marginally feasible) technologies there will be on hand to frantically improve at the last minute when ever-growing demand for energy peaks and readily available oil has become unaffordable for less important applications. Algae is particularly promising because it relies on a billion years of evolution focussed on minimal-energy solutions to extracting power from sunlight, and because it has relatively little background pollution associated with it (as compared to the array of toxic chemicals used to manufacture solar cells [lowtechmagazine.com], for example). Plus, understanding of genetic engineering can only improve greatly.
I still strongly prefer nuclear energy (safe fission designs for now, fusion later if that ever gets off the ground), but the political controversy surrounding nuclear power plants appears set to make nuclear energy a minor part of future energy provisions. Algae looks to be uncontroversial and usable everywhere there is decent sunlight, with almost no toxic chemicals or proliferation concerns.
Re:Need it be commercialized? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's abuse the analogy: Budweiser is cheaper and more consistent than most microbrews.
Most telling at the end (Score:5, Insightful)
The last few bits at the end of the article seem to be the most important...
"It's going to take the right engineering solution with the right species to make it commercially viable,"
In other words, it it's not "perfect" (for varying degrees of perfection), we're just not going to do it.
I find it interesting that they want to find the perfect organism first, rather than get close first, and then refine the process.
And seriously, "extracting its oils without degrading other parts of the algae that can be made into side products and sold as well"?
What is their core operation? Getting the oil, or merchandising the left-overs?
Do the first, well, first; THEN work out the second.
"It's never going to get off the ground without a helping hand,"
translation: we're shell companies set up by multi-billion corps. Give us tax money.
Yeesh... It's no wonder people home-brew this stuff.
Re:Need it be commercialized? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, I chose Bud because when I am choosing a fuel, I want a cheap product that delivers consistent quality (I'm not saying Budweiser delivers high quality, just that each can of Budweiser is pretty much the same as every other can of Budweiser, which is desirable in a fuel).
Re:My trifecta (Score:2, Insightful)
What I don't get (Score:5, Insightful)
This research is decades old, started by the Dept. of Energy in the mid-70's in the wake of the '74 Arab oil embargo. Then there's this group [unh.edu] who told me they had most of the hard problems solved and already had successful pilot tests. That was two years ago. So how can scale commercial still be 10 years off?
I'm wondering if it isn't like the EV-1, GM's electric car. GM didn't want it, oil companies definitely didn't want it, parts manufacturers, mechanics, and state governments faced with losing fuel tax revenues didn't want it (at least right away). On the opposition side of algae oil would be the Saudis, who fund several prominent think tanks in D.C. that tend to be the home of retired politicians and a near endless supply of campaign cash. The oil companies making a lot of money off the status quo and just about anyone in the transportation pipeline.
It will be interesting to see how many players with an interest in the status quo will be inserting themselves into the development of algae oil.
Re:so this is like fusion but only 10 years away i (Score:5, Insightful)
That comparison is not valid. The problem with fuel from algae is to make it *commercially* viable. The problem with energy from fusion is to make it *viable*, period.
At this moment in time, there is not a single fusion reactor anywhere in the world that produces net energy. By contrast, there are many facilities that obtain fuel from algae. But the fuel that is being produced is not cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels at market prices.
Gevo is looking for money, not producing fuel. (Score:3, Insightful)
Quote from the Gevo web site, 2009-10-11, 11:37 PDT: "Our team of biofuel experts is developing the next generation of biofuels. Gevo's GIFT® process will provide a sustainable path to the replacement of petrochemicals like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel." [My emphasis]
Gevo is apparently looking for money, not producing fuel. Those who run Gevo will apparently make money, even if the investors lose money.
Re:Time to get some good advice ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Your thesis is not correct.
Clostridium acetobutylicum was grown in tank cultures for decades in order to produce acetone and butyl alcohol. The industry was eventually put out of business by the oil industry and it was because the world was awash in petroleum As petroleum becomes scarce the industry will eventually come back unless some other process is even cheaper.
When you hear of ethanol for motor fuel then remember this: The industry needs to brew a keg of beer at a retail price $2.50. This is easy to see! Beer is 5% ethanol. Its says so right on the can. A keg is 57 liters. 5% of 60 = 3 liters. 3 liters of ethanol is about the same energy as 2.5 liters of gasoline. If gas costs $1.00 per liter then that keg needs to be brewed and the ethanol concentrated to at least 95% and marketed at a price of $2.50 and that $2.50 must return a profit.
So when we hear how ethanol is going to save our bacon then we need to realize that 100% of the USA corn crop will supply liquid fuel for about 2 weeks. If we have the the technology to produce the ethanol at a price competitive with what we currently pay for gasoline then we should expect the price of beer to drop to about 1% of what it costs now!
Re:Not quite so far away; here's how to do it (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy to be cheap and simple and to breezily handwave when all you have to do is type on your keyboard. It's not easy out in the real world with real money.
Otherwise, why aren't you out there doing it? Why isn't anyone?
Re:Time to get some good advice ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Clostridium acetobutylicum was grown in tank cultures for decades in order to produce acetone and butyl alcohol.
yeah, and that process was only about 35% efficient. ButylFuels LLC claims to have it up to much better levels, but so far their only available suitable feedstock is corn, so we're back to the same problem as ethanol.
So when we hear how ethanol is going to save our bacon then we need to realize that 100% of the USA corn crop will supply liquid fuel for about 2 weeks.
Don't forget that virtually all corn for ethanol is grown continuously, meaning year after year without rotation, so it does severe damage to the soil; after a few years of this the soil is an inert medium and you're basically growing hydroponically in a soil medium. It's only something like 15% energy-positive after all the fossil fuels you blow on fertilizing, harvesting, and processing it, so it wouldn't even end up being profitable if not for subsidies on both ends. And, of course, ethanol is an inferior motor fuel to gasoline in many ways. It requires higher compression, and it features lesser lubricity.
Re:Nobel Winner! (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize that most of those problems were inherited from the Bush era, right?
Picture this:
Some manager ramps up production and profit at a factory by running machines to breaking point and shafting maintenance. His numbers are so good that he gets promoted.
Enter the next guy, who has to shut it down for extensive repairs. His production plummets.
Who was responsible for the problem? Who is actually going to get the blame?