Author Topic: Spanish scientists search for fuel of the future (Read 915 times)

Old Fart · « **on:** March 31, 2011, 05:59:51 AM »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110331/bs_afp/spainenergyalternativeenvironmentresearch

Scientists may have cracked the puzzle of how to mimic fossil fuel creation in far less time.

Dixie Dude · « **Reply #1 on:** March 31, 2011, 06:50:05 AM »

From what I have read about algae oil. It would cost $4 a gallon of algae oil gasoline. Not too bad. In order to fuel the entire country, greenhouses growing algae would cover an area the size of Rhode Island. Of course these greenhouses would be scattered around the country. Not bad, but gasoline would have to get up the $4 and stay there. The $4 algae gas would include the taxes as it would cost about $2 to produce it. This may be the future. Also algae is considered carbon neutral, as it takes carbon dioxide out of the air to grow, but puts the same amount back in when burned.

Hooker · « **Reply #2 on:** March 31, 2011, 08:23:39 AM »

Why should the tax equal the cost of production? We can bring alternative fuels to market at or below the cost of fossil fuels, by removing the government.
But then again if you think as I do that the government is filled with slimy, greasy, scum maybe we should render out those politicians and bureaucrats and burn the byproducts for fuel. Although I'm quite sure they would never meet environmental emission standards.

Pat

Conan The Librarian · « **Reply #3 on:** March 31, 2011, 08:28:19 AM »

Thismisnt just the future, it's the present. This is pretty well developed, and has been done in production quantities for over twenty years. Ironically most of the foundational research was done in the middle east. In the US, it is currently produced in production quantities in southern California, where the products are gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

The type of algae is the key. The algaes used store excess fat when they get more energy than they can use, so they become little fat globules. These globules are surprisingly easy to turn into fuel that meets all current fuel quantity standards.

We are hearing more about it now because it is getting price competitive with petroleum based fuels.

One of the grat things about this is that no change is needed to the existing fuel infrastructure. A tanker of gasoline made from algae can supply your local gas station, without modifications.

Conan The Librarian · « **Reply #4 on:** March 31, 2011, 08:31:13 AM »

Hooker:
It's because this has all been done with private money, not with government subsidy like ethanol. I do not know what the tax percents are, or the retail costs currently, however.

Dixie Dude · « **Reply #5 on:** March 31, 2011, 09:37:54 AM »

Natural gas can also be produced from cow manure and a seaweed that grows 6' per day. It too costs about twice as much as drilling for it. We will eventually tap these resources when the price of oil and natural gas doubles and stays there. There is enough cow manure from dairy farms and feed stalls in America to produce about 1/3 of the natural gas we consume. Algae oil and manure and seaweed natural gas is probably the future of fuels in about 50 years. We still have plenty in the ground domestically if we were allowed to drill it.

Old Fart · « **Reply #6 on:** March 31, 2011, 10:46:15 AM »

Quote from: Dixie Dude on March 31, 2011, 09:37:54 AM

There is enough cow manure from dairy farms and feed stalls in America to produce about 1/3 of the natural gas we consume.

I've drove thru a couple towns in west Texas with feedlots that could probably make someone a millionare.

SHOOTALL · « **Reply #7 on:** March 31, 2011, 11:27:01 AM »

Why not convert milking parlors into gas capture parlors ?

Bet the guy who hooks um up gets paid well

myronman3 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 31, 2011, 11:45:17 AM »

if it takes money away from the arabs, i am all for it. think of the jobs that would be created here and those arabs trying to eat their oil.

Dixie Dude · « **Reply #9 on:** March 31, 2011, 11:56:38 AM »

The cow manure has to be put into pools of water and covered. Bacteria injected. Then the cover captures the produced natural gas. It is labor intensive, which is why it cost more than drilling or fracturing rock right now. The solids left are fertilizer. The seaweed can be grown in bays around the country, harvested and put into covered pools with bacteria to produce natural gas like cow manure.

Algae can be grown in covered greenhouses, once grown, water removed and the algae processed into oil which can be made into fuel.

I think a lot of our vegetables in the future will be grown in greenhouses so they can be grown year round and not just seasonal. A one acre greenhouse can produce say 4 crops a year of some type vegetable, but the equivelant on open farmland would be 4 acres. The greenhouse could be screened to eliminate bugs and insecticides. The freed up farmland could graze cows and have a natural gas covered pond made from cow manure.

Hooker · « **Reply #10 on:** March 31, 2011, 12:57:18 PM »

Actually you would be surprised at the simplicity in the process of producing methane gas from organic matter.
Anaerobic digestion is most efficient the only things that need to be added are mixing and heat to get maximum gas production.
When I worked in the waste water field we used the gas produced to heat our digesters . We wasted about 100 times more gas than we used heating the them by burning it off through a flare. This was not a completely sealed system so there is no telling how much gas just escaped into the atmosphere. It's quite possible that with a sealed system we could have heated the entire plant, fueled all of our equipment and generated our own electricity. And these were just two small digesters fed by a town of 20,000 people and not operated for maximum gas production.

Pat

BUGEYE · « **Reply #11 on:** March 31, 2011, 02:10:23 PM »

Off topic. the friends of the imam in the white house have invested heavily in this kind of energy production. al gore for instance. so obama wants the price of gas to go as high as possible so we'll fall in line and push for more alternatives which in turn makes his buddies richer.

oldandslow · « **Reply #12 on:** April 01, 2011, 04:19:10 AM »

This is nothing new. The same thing is being done about 60 miles west of where I live. It was in the local news 3 or 4 years ago. There is another facility in the planning stages that is to be located a few miles south of here. Like some other technologies it all hinges on the cost of oil for it to be viable.

Dixie Dude · « **Reply #13 on:** April 01, 2011, 04:25:47 AM »

Yep, a lot of new technologies depend on oil prices remaining high. Substitutes and synthetics take their place then. Vehicles can get 20% better mileage right now if they would put hydraulic or flywheel breaking on cars. Then the hydraulics or flywheels could help assist in acceleration. Most fuel is used in acceleration. That is why in town driving uses so much fuel, starting and stopping so much.

Dixie Dude · « **Reply #14 on:** April 01, 2011, 05:26:56 AM »

I've read that Exxon is spending $500 million on an algae plant. Water is going to be in higher demand if we go to algae production. Producing our own energy would create more jobs here, help with half the trade deficit, and generate more taxes. If production of biodiesel gets high enough, it could be used in electric generation with diesel turbines. Diesel is very similar to jet fuel so that wouldn't be a problem.

oldandslow · « **Reply #15 on:** April 01, 2011, 02:38:24 PM »

If ExxonMobil gets into this maybe something will happen sooner than later. What I've read about the technology is that it requires a lot of water. Well, guess what? Oil production produces a lot of water, huge amounts in some cases, that to be gotten rid of someway. A lot is pumped back into the ground for waterflood ( tertiary) recovery but there is a tremendous amount that has to be pumped or trucked to disposal wells or evaporation lakes and this is a huge expense for the oil companies. If the oil industry is producing algae oil their produce water can be used in it's production solving two problems at once. Yes, the water has to be cleaned up. The planned facility I mentioned is going to do a study to see what is required to filter the water to usable quality. They are looking for investors so they can get started with their project.

What really bothers me about this particular project is that the technology is already available and has been proved to work.

Several years ago a few oilfield businesses, a few oil producers and some engineers got together and built a purification plant 5 miles south of Lovington, NM using their own resources, not government or grant money. The project produced water clean enough to drink from produced water and this stuff is nasty. The results were presented to the state and it has been totally ignored. In fact the state is spending a lot of taxpayer money pumping brackish water up from the Tularosa basin and trying to duplicate what has already been done privately.

The technology is there. All it needs is to be USED. Of course politics and lining people's pockets has gotten in the way

Sourdough · « **Reply #16 on:** April 01, 2011, 08:28:24 PM »

Every big city should harness their sewer system. These sewers are full of methane gas, and it is a location where it could be captured and removed.

Dixie Dude · « **Reply #17 on:** April 02, 2011, 05:15:13 AM »

Being in the natrual gas industry. Harnishing sewer gas has not been cost effective. It was tried in the 1970's. Cow manure at feed stalls and dairy farms produce 10-20 times the gas as human sewage. In the 70's a sewer gas project was built in Missouri I think and it wasn't cost effective. Then about the same time a feed stall was used to build a gas digester next to it and it produced enough natural gas for 700-800 homes. However the cow manure gas cost about twice as much as drilling due to the labor involved. Another cow manure digester was built somewhere, but can't remember, and the results were about the same. Cow manure gas from feed stalls and dairy farms can produce about 1/3 of Americas natural gas needs at twice the price of drilling.

I believe that in the distant future say 50-100 years from now it might be cost effective, but we have too much in the ground that is easier to drill for. Just in Anwar alone is 47 years of natural gas for the lower 48. We just need to drill it and build an 800 mile pipeline into Canada via the Alaskan Highway and tie-into Canadas natural gas system to pipe it to the lower 48. With rock fracking in the lower 48 we have built up a huge supply. However it has caused some earthquakes in Arkansas and some well water is getting gas in it in Pennsylvania and New York. Everything has its price.

Casull · « **Reply #18 on:** April 02, 2011, 09:39:36 AM »

When it becomes cost effective, then it will be done. Algae, methane, biodiesel, etc. No American business man is going to long ignore money to be made. So, again, when it becomes cost effective, they will come.

magooch · « **Reply #19 on:** April 03, 2011, 06:09:09 AM »

More drilling will happen when we get rid of all the silly environazis and get on with the natural course of things. We definitley need more consumption of carbon based fuels to rejump-start global warming. The calendar says it's spring, but so far I've only seen one flock of geese heading north.

oldandslow · « **Reply #20 on:** April 03, 2011, 09:18:36 AM »

Quote from: magooch on April 03, 2011, 06:09:09 AM

More drilling will happen when we get rid of all the silly environazis and get on with the natural course of things. We definitley need more consumption of carbon based fuels to rejump-start global warming. The calendar says it's spring, but so far I've only seen one flock of geese heading north.

The globe is quite warm on the south plains. I live at 4000' elevation, give or take a few feet, and the mesquites are putting on leaves this week and the elms are leafed out. I have never seen this happen in April. This is 4-6 weeks before normal. The thermometer hit 94 degrees yesterday. The geese are probably stopped off at Bitter Lakes wildlife refuge to get a suntan.

Conan The Librarian · « **Reply #21 on:** April 04, 2011, 07:33:52 AM »

We had a year like that last year. This year its april and still no sign that winter is about to end. We usually have things greening up by now, but it's not happening. Sub zero temps last week.

blind ear · « **Reply #22 on:** April 04, 2011, 12:56:52 PM »

From what I have read, the expense is seperateing the oil from the algae cell, breaking down the cell wall.

Fish ponds are plauged by blue green algae (cianobacteria I think) but I haven't found where it has been tried to seperate the algae from the pond water or separate the oil from the algae cell. Blue Green yeilds substancial oil also.

ear

Dixie Dude · « **Reply #23 on:** April 04, 2011, 05:13:58 PM »

What I read about and saw pictures of is the algae would be grown in water tubes hung vertically in a greenhouse. Once the algae grew and filled the tubes with dark green or blue green, it would be emptied and seperated, squeezed to get the oil out. The tubes would be refilled with water, nutrients and algae to grow again.

Victor3 · « **Reply #24 on:** April 06, 2011, 08:59:57 PM »

Little off-topic, but this is a cool website for those interested in studying alternative fuel sources...

http://www.woodgas.com/index.htm