Ethanol...

@BillRM,

Engine wear is a simple matter of P chem. The alcohol will dissociate and leave a acid hydroxyl in the waste product that will tear up manifolds, the exhaust system and combustion chambers. This is very similar to the time when most formulated gases contained tetraethyl lead. The dissociation products of the waste stream lead to engine wear that made the avaerage engine die at about 100000 miles +/- 20 K. One of the reasons that todays engines last so long is because the gasoline doesnt have the lead in it any longer.

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The manufacturers CLAIM to have redesigned vulnerable components for the use of ethanol back in the early 90s somewhere but I have a hard time believing that could be totally effective. There's still the problem fman describes and the problem should not exist.

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@farmerman,

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ALGAE formed diesel is much more achievable because it doesnt interfere with anything in the food chain and is easily accomplishable with present technology. Im more inclined to grow algae farms in sub tropical seas ahere the ocean itself can provide a 3-D structure for the algae .ALso, theyve recently found several strains of algae that thrive in cooler seas.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04/01/algae.oil/index.html

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/TECH/science/04/01/algae.oil/art.algae.jpg

Quote:

Algae are among the fastest growing plants in the world, and about 50 percent of their weight is oil. That lipid oil can be used to make biodiesel for cars, trucks, and airplanes. Watch how pond scum can be turned into fuel »

Most people know algae as "pond scum." And until recently, most energy research and development projects used ponds to grow it.

But instead of ponds, Valcent uses a closed, vertical system, growing the algae in long rows of moving plastic bags. The patented system is called Vertigro, a joint venture with Canadian alternative energy company Global Green Solutions. The companies have invested about $5 million in the Texas facility.

"A pond has a limited amount of surface area for solar absorption," said Kertz.

"By going vertical, you can get a lot more surface area to expose cells to the sunlight. It keeps the algae hanging in the sunlight just long enough to pick up the solar energy they need to produce, to go through photosynthesis," he said.

Kertz said he can produce about 100,000 gallons of algae oil a year per acre, compared to about 30 gallons per acre from corn; 50 gallons from soybeans.

I mean, here we have a case of an extremely good idea and an extremely bad ide, and so far....

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One other major advantage of algae, the system you see in the picture works best in a fricking desert i.e. no valuable farmland would be involved. You'd be giving the people down there in Nevada, Arizona, and NM something to do other than run casinos and reservations...

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@gungasnake,

The reason thyre so intent on desert base is because they are heavily invested in it. nothing more. There is no reason that algae cannot grow in estuaries and in shallow bays. Sunlight does reach far down in the water column and many algaes have evolved such sunlight optimization mechanisms, (eg, denser chloroplasts etc). ITS NO PROBLEM besides, several University "Sea Grant" programs are already working on the structure, so if it ws a bad idea, why the research, why not just call gunga and get a pronouncement.

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@farmerman,

Don't get me wrong, if you can make oil from algae work in Pa that's wonderful, just that most of what I read indicates it would work best in deserts.

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@gungasnake,

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Don't get me wrong, if you can make oil from algae work in Pa that's wonderful,

No ocwana in Pa. The Seagrant research is being done by several Universities in more tropical locations like the Wesetrn Fla Panhandle (Gulf waters) and off Hawaii. Im sure the Chinese will be whipping our asses in this too.

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@farmerman,

If we can produce enough for our own needs it won't matter how much more the Chinese produce.

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@gungasnake,

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If we can produce enough for our own needs it won't matter how much more the Chinese produce.

why bother, the better solution is to get people on public transit, run most of it by electricity, and generate the electricity with nuclear until we get a better method. When we do we convert the power plants over to the new source, easy peazy...

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@hawkeye10,

Give me a break public transportation only work well in the heart of major cities otherwise it a nightmare for the people who need to used it even in fairly high density population areas.

There are whole states where the density of the population is so low and the distant is so great that no manner of pubic transportation would work for them.

Hell my wife once work in New Mexico where her job demand so many miles of travel that even a car was not a good choice and she therefore picked up both a small plane and a pilot license and was able to write some of the cost off her income taxes by claiming such was needed for her job.

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@BillRM,

looks like we agree on ethanol at least. Its a loser, finacially and energy budget wise.

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@farmerman,

Farmerman, what's the progress on taking the straw from grain and corn plants, breaking it down biochemically much like cows do it, and fermenting the products into alcohol? Is this on track for becoming viable? How about making woodgass out of the straw and piping it into an old-fashioned car carborator?

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@farmerman,

we desperately need a new energy source, one that is cheap, safe, clean and efficient. Ethanol is not it. Neither is solar (cost problems that will not go away, as well as inability to generate enough product). Geothermal is a disaster waiting to happen cause we have no Idea WTF we are doing when we drill into the earth crust.

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@farmerman,

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looks like we agree on ethanol at least. Its a loser, finacially and energy budget wise.

Sadly correct with our current technology at least.

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@BillRM,

As long as energy budgets are based upon petro units well never get ahead. Years ago my company created a geothermal based fermentation unit for Publicker (booze) Industries.
For years they were making their fermented bourbon mash (1st steps in creating booze) by this huge fermentation reactor that was in a large complex of tanks and distillation units. One of my chemE's did some bench work and found that they would increase their fermented mash potency from 5 to over 13% just by keeping their fernentation at lower temps (like below 60 degrees F). THey would be pumping out 5 and 6% alcohol mashes and then be distilling this "wine" into bourbon "squeeze" . We set up a bench scale fermentation unit that sucked constant temp ground water into a cooling loop matrix and we were putting out almost the theoretical max for that type yeast (we put out 13% alky and the yeast produced an 18% max before the alcohol would kill the yeats). Our design was chosen for a full scale op and we built a nice distillation complex using geothermal systems rather than cooling with River water, which, in summertime would be over 85 degrees .

They saved over 100% of their total energy need for unit production of finished bourbon (from fermentation to distillation only)-filtration and barreling were part of a next-in-line aging loop.

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@hawkeye10,

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Geothermal is a disaster waiting to happen cause we have no Idea WTF we are doing when we drill into the earth crust.

Once more you got to be kidding me and or watching too many scifi movies as we been drilling holes in the earth for some time now.

Second, Geothermal is the main source of energy for Greenland and Iceland for some decades now.

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@BillRM,

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Once more you got to be kidding me and or watching too many scifi movies as we been drilling holes in the earth for some time now.

Once more I prove to be knowledgeable on which I speak where as the a2k'ers who attack me are ignorant.

Quote:

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: December 11, 2009
The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials that the government project will be abandoned.

The project by the company, AltaRock Energy, was the Obama administration’s first major test of geothermal energy as a significant alternative to fossil fuels and the project was being financed with federal Department of Energy money at a site about 100 miles north of San Francisco called the Geysers.

But on Friday, the Energy Department said that AltaRock had given notice this week that “it will not be continuing work at the Geysers” as part of the agency’s geothermal development program.

The project’s apparent collapse comes a day after Swiss government officials permanently shut down a similar project in Basel, because of the damaging earthquakes it produced in 2006 and 2007. Taken together, the two setbacks could change the direction of the Obama administration’s geothermal program, which had raised hopes that the earth’s bedrock could be quickly tapped as a clean and almost limitless energy source

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/science/earth/12quake.html

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@hawkeye10,

EARTHQUAKES even before I begin to research this I know this is some more nonsense but it should be fun to find out more.

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@hawkeye10,

So you got a few tremors in an earthquake zone and some fools wish to blame a geothermal project!

The Basel area in fact get three or four such quakes a year on average without any drilling at all!!!!!!!!!

Kind of remind me of the fears that shut down the 1960s Storm Fury project to weaken hurricanes for fear of lawsuits if a hurricane that was a target for the program would make landfall and the lawyers would go to town claiming but for the cloud seeding the Hurricane would never had hit where it did.

Both projects was shut down for fear of lawyers not earthquakes.

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@BillRM,

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Both projects was shut down for fear of lawyers not earthquakes

no, they were shut down because science had not expected the quakes, nor the inability of the drillers in Cal to drill. They have thus concluded that they dont know enough about what is going on to continue these projects.

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