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Topic: After 30 Years Algae Get's the Green Light
| Author | Message |
| al medio | Posted – 5/2/2008 12:17:21 PM | show profile What will become of my Hypostomus Plecostomus better known as "algae eater" who bravely patrols my aquarium? Will he be targeted by the biodiesel industry? Does he need a bodyguard? |
| al medio | Posted – 5/2/2008 1:43:15 PM | show profile I support renewable fuel cells like solid-oxcide when used in a micro combined heat and power application. This system produces constant electricity,and the excess energy not used for electricity is used for heat. But as long as it is a closed loop system i"m for it. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 5/2/2008 2:07:30 PM | show profile I think algae's promising, but how water-intensive is it to produce? I'm liking switchgrass these days. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/2/2008 2:53:01 PM | show profile Scale scale scale scale scale scale scale scale scale I hope algae proves promising, but it's all about scale. What we'll be having is a liquid fuels crisis. We need do have a huge reduction in the amount of liquid fuels we use (through more efficient cars, much smaller calls, plug-in hybrid cars, etc.). Because producing that much biofuel is simply not feasible. Then when we don't need the vast quantities of liquid fuel that we need now, I believe we will be able to "grow" all of those biofuels domestically. So here are the steps: 1. As it comes time to switch cars (every 10 to 15 years), give up the gas guzzler for a more fuel efficient car. 2. As plug-in hybrid cars become available, buy these. If we can buy them within a few years, within about 30 years they will be a major part of the vehicle fleet. 3. Clean up our power utilities since we will need more clean electric power generation for those PHEVs. PHEVs are worse than hybrid cars with respect to greenhouse gas emissions if your power generation is all coal. So we need to phase our coal fired power plants and get more power generation from renewable or non-carbon sources. 4. In the meantime, we need to rapidly ramp up the production and distribution of environmentally sound biofuels, this means first proving they are viable, making sure we consider other consequences (such as what we found out later about corn ethanol), build refineries all over, build pipelines to distribute these fuels, etc. etc. In 40 years with a lot of focus and perseverence, I think we can get there. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/2/2008 5:18:11 PM | show profile I'm no expert in trade, but this might be what's going on. First of all, a lot more passenger cars in Europe are diesel, so biodiesel I assume is in greater demand there than here. Here is what one account I saw claims. It's all about corporate greed at US taxpayer expense (what a shock!). A bunch of soybeans are converted to biodiesel in South America, and on the way to Europe, they stop by the US Gulf and add a couple of drops of petroleum diesel. By adding this tiny bit of petroleum diesel, this qualifies the whole load, headed for Europe, for a biodiesel tax credit intended for US producers. The "splash and dash" adds $1 in subsidies paid by US taxpayers for South American biofuel bound for Europe. (This is all from http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/1204234786188.xml) Also oil and gasoline are of course traded on the global market, so just because something might be produced in one country doesn't mean it will be sold there. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/2/2008 5:57:21 PM | show profile Do a search for "splash and dash" and there are quite a few news articles on it, more recent as well. Americans are the world's suckers... One example of an article is called "Splash and Dash" by David Freddoso. *** Somewhere in Germany, a trucker is thanking you. A biofuel executive is cursing you. You probably don't know it, but you paid $1 for each gallon of the Brazilian biodiesel fuel blend the trucker is using. The fuel-maker is upset because your generous contribution is driving down the price at which he can sell his product. For their elation and disgust, for your impoverishment, and probably for some harm to the environment as well, you can blame the United States Congress. This all results from yet another misguided attempt to manipulate economic behavior through the tax code. ...Rep. John Shadegg (R., Ariz.) demonstrated the concept?s simplicity last week by referring to an article that received little attention when it was published last year. It works like this: A foreign tanker carrying 9 million gallons of biodiesel from Brazil or Malaysia sails to an American port. While it waits, 9,000 gallons of American diesel is added ? that?s right, a .1 percent blend ? so as to earn the blender a $9 million tax credit. The tanker heads to Europe, where diesel cars are far more common and biodiesel is further subsidized. In some cases, tankers have reportedly made round trips from Europe to the U.S. simply to collect the subsidy. Thus we ?import? and ?export? the same fuel from and to the same country. ?Just think of it,? said Shadegg. ?If I produce biodiesel anywhere in the world where the cost of shipping it to the United States before shipping it to the end consumer is less than a dollar a gallon, then I?m going to take advantage of this subsidy.? It is difficult to track the exact cost of Splash and Dash to the U.S. Treasury, but the tax credit's absurd distortion of the market is impossible to miss. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmI3MDVjOGEwYWMxN2Y3ODZmYWJjNjk0YjAxNTI3M2E= |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/2/2008 9:26:33 PM | show profile Novel, I checked out the video. I imagine that algae biodiesel will be a part of our future. But keep in mind the video, article are from the company trying to sell the stuff... Here are a couple of other articles/discussions that may balance that a bit: All About Algae: Can Pond Scum Power Our Future? http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/11/eco.algae/ Algal Biodiesel: Fact or Fiction? http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/05/algal-biodiesel-fact-or-fiction.html I think everyone would like to think there is one silver bullet, if we can just get that right all will be fine. It's increasingly looking like there will be no silver bullets, unless aliens come to us in 2012 and share their secrets with us. I think we'll need all the renewable energy we can get, and more. |
