The Greenest Green Fuel, PopularScience.com

here's my friends over at Solix Biofuels in the news again.

The Greenest Green Fuel
Looking for a clean fuel that grows anywhere, needs only sunlight and water, and could produce enough oil to free the U.S. from its petroleum addiction? Here’s one start-up’s plan for converting oil from algae—yes, algae

MrErlo said:

here's my friends over at Solix Biofuels in the news again.

The Greenest Green Fuel
Looking for a clean fuel that grows anywhere, needs only sunlight and water, and could produce enough oil to free the U.S. from its petroleum addiction? Here’s one start-up’s plan for converting oil from algae—yes, algae

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I read that article a little while ago. Quite interesting....hope more comes of it!

SyNtAxx said:

I read that article a little while ago. Quite interesting....hope more comes of it!

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you should check more out about Solix, they've really got their stuff together. i interviewed with them for an engineering position a couple months ago, and they told me to call in a couple months.... so it looks like Mr. Henston is due for another phone call.

How do they compare to Global Green? (GGRN) They are working on bio from algae also.

much lower cost, only slightly lower efficiency

marcusTDI said:

How do they compare to Global Green? (GGRN) They are working on bio from algae also.

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AFAIK (mostly from reading articles and talking to Solix in person), Solix and Green Fuel are by far the two leading american companies. however, they are working towards different sides of the same goal.

Green fuel has expensive, yet very effective high density plastic tubes and an elaborate CO2 system. they get excellent results, but are following the "high cost, high efficiency" model.

Solix, according to my meetings, it attempting to target the "much lower cost, only slightly lower efficiency" market. they believe that they will be able to be 80% as efficient at 10% of the cost (those are my personal made up on the spot numbers, not from any real source).

i've been following both of these companies pretty closely over the past year, i guess we'll see who's the first to win a huge investment. either way, it's great to see so much algae in the newspaper.

Just remember- estimates of theoretical yield for algae are in the 10 to 15 thousand gallon/acre range. Soy is 50 gal/acre and rapeseed is 3-500 gal/acre IIRC. If we hit 1 percent yield that is double or triple soy. Pretty clear that algae should be the crop which puts a dent in foriegn oil use.

Yet for all the work to date, all Solix had produced was a "few drops in the bottom of an Erlenmeyer flask".

I'll keep investing in ExxonMobil.

"the business of america is sustainability" - coolidge

octotatt said:

Yet for all the work to date, all Solix had produced was a "few drops in the bottom of an Erlenmeyer flask".

I'll keep investing in ExxonMobil.

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whatever helps you sleep at night. i think our society has passed the point where we can focus our entire lives on acquiring material wealth, and needs to start thinking much more seriously about sustainability.

Investing precious time, materials, and money into a failed utopian dream will do absolutely nothing to improve the earths sustainability. Just like founder of Solix said, the greatest ideas in the world won't go anywhere unless they make a profit. That's the beauty of the market, it will weed out bad ideas eventually.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love nothing more than to be wrong about this, but the more I read, the less feasible this thing appears to be. By the time this technology makes enough oil to to fill up one big rig, much better ideas will have come along make this approach nonviable.

octotatt said:

Investing precious time, materials, and money into a failed utopian dream...

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Like Petroleum Madness?

octotatt said:

That's the beauty of the market, it will weed out bad ideas eventually.

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that was my point. i think we need to move past the point where "profitability" dominates our society. and i hope you're wrong also, go algae!

RC said:

Like Petroleum Madness?

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Madness would be putting a whole lot of effort and money into something that ultimately yields nothing. The money spent on algae would probably (Note the use of probably, nothing is sure in technology or investing) be better spent on tons of better forms of generating energy. I won't go into those at this point, I have work to do!

octotatt said:

... tons of better forms of generating energy. I won't go into those at this point, I have work to do!

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when you get a chacne, i'm sure we'd all be very interested to hear your suggestions for better energy solutions. i'm always trying to learn about new technologies from anyone who'll tell me.

MrErlo said:

Solix, according to my meetings, it attempting to target the "much lower cost, only slightly lower efficiency" market. they believe that they will be able to be 80% as efficient at 10% of the cost (those are my personal made up on the spot numbers, not from any real source).

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Good, that's what I told them needs to be done when I talked to them a while back. (didn't talk to much about what they had already been doing, so I'm not sure if they were already taking that approach or not)

MrErlo said:

when you get a chacne, i'm sure we'd all be very interested to hear your suggestions for better energy solutions. i'm always trying to learn about new technologies from anyone who'll tell me.

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Here's one of my favorites, it kills two birds with one stone.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2004-01-22-kantor_x.htm


Here's a great list of alt energy companies that you can invest in also. So many ideas, so little capital!

http://www.altenergystocks.com/stocks.html

>>>That's the beauty of the market, it will weed out bad ideas eventually...<<<
The problem with "the market" in this case is that it has created reliance upon a finite and unsustainable resource. The "market" wont mean anything when all the oil has been consumed. The "market" cant provide what no longer exsists.
In most cases I like the market too, but in this case some sort of financial penalty needs to be attached to fossil fuel consumption. Fossil fuels have in fact been subsidized by our tax dollars; there is a hidden cost (enviornmental and through the need for military spending) that currently is NOT being paid at the pump by the end consumer. It will instead be paid by our grandchildren.
If you want the market for sustainable fuels to work, the playing field needs to be leveled. A $3 per gallon tax on fossil-sourced gasoline, earmarked toward paying off the federal deficit, would level the field. Otherwise, the status quo will continue to its violent, polluted end.

octotatt said:

Here's one of my favorites [themal depolymerization], it kills two birds with one stone.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2004-01-22-kantor_x.htm

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It is one of my favorites too. Although... I have followed them fairly closely, even interviewed their Chief Technical Officer. They are having difficulty with the process and the economics. It still looks promising, but there is much to prove out yet.

We will likely need a variety of approaches and a variety of different feedstocks. I heard David Blume speak at the MREA Sustainability Fair in June on alcohol fuels. He talked about harvesting ocean algae and kelp for alcohol fuels. His book comes out in July. I've got one on order and will read it very carefully.

http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com/alcohol/

ikendu said:

We will likely need a variety of approaches and a variety of different feedstocks. I heard David Blume speak at the MREA Sustainability Fair in June on alcohol fuels. He talked about harvesting ocean algae and kelp for alcohol fuels. His book comes out in July. I've got one on order and will read it very carefully.

http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com/alcohol/

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I found his talk quite refreshing too. For all the railing I've heard about ethanol, it is nice to hear someone address how it can be used sustainablyh! I've gotten up the nerve to run E50-60 in our Toyota and have talked with him and the permaculture folks about coming to Milwaukee for the book tour.

TDP is a great thing for burning up our waste, true.. but it's not really a way to have sustainable energy. There are 2 things at work here... first, we only make so much waste (globally).. Sure, Americans are gluttonous wasteful pigs and we have a lot of waste by comparison, but that will still only likely cover 20% - 30% of our "oil needs"..

So we hit the second thing.. we need to feed -something- into the TDP system, right? But, why would we put in materials that we can get oil from a LOT easier? Seriously...if you can press oil from seeds for a lot less energy than you can "gassify, liquify, purify" it, why would you not press it? That would be bio-diesel instead of some synthetic. Then you have the waste from the pressed seeds... turns out, it makes GREAT feed for livestock.. why burn that up when you can convert it to meat?.. surely TDP won't make meat from burning stuff up.. Then you have the stocks used to get the oil in the first place... what if we used HEMP and used the stalks for paper, clothes, building materials, and on and on.. do we want to burn that up for more oil?

As a point of note, the "market" is a psychopath that's content to kill people for cash. As intelligent beings, I'd think we can find better ways to function than to turn over the means of surviving to a psycho who's only goal is to enrich the very very few at the expense of many, even to their deaths. You'll also note that most things that are "profitable" were at one time "just a theory", and it took investment and determination to move it forward.. the "market" isn't about change or innovation (as a rule), it's out full exploitation for maximum (limitedly directed) gains.

TDP is a GREAT idea for reclamation centers so we stop filling up land fills.. but it's not going to be our energy saviour any time soon .. It takes way too much energy input to gassify matter for this to be feasable on a large scale any time soon (where as bio-diesel is very feasable on a large scale almost immidiately if we just put the resources and desire to it).

Lots of good points on TDP on technical issues. My point overall is that there are a lot of better energy ideas than algae. Your point on the market as a psychopath is very interesting. That's what laws and regulations are for. The market is the ultimate generating machine. Everything you have today, is provided to you via the market. Government programs are mostly ineffective. The Soviets proved that. A technology that requires that requires massive government subsidies ulitmately collapses. Putting billions of dollars investment into algae to get a couple of dozen quarts of oil certainly won't solve our problems, no matter how "green" that resulting oil is. You always have to factor the "non-green" energy that is expended to create the wealth for the susbidy. Here are some private market, green energy companies with an array of great ideas :

http://www.altenergystocks.com/stocks.html

"Your point on the market as a psychopath is very interesting. That's what laws and regulations are for."

We'll not get in to how those that "support free markets" also think regulations are bad, in all cases.. which implies they support psychopaths running the show..

As far as "investing in algae", if we don't explore something, how do we ever find out if it will work? And if we looked at it 10, 20, 50 years ago at a certian tech level then and refuse to look at it "now" with respect to "current technology", what kinds of things would we be without? and if we said "we have X, why bother trying to improve it", we'd not have these ultra-efficient light bulbs we have, we'd not have all the miniaturization we do and so our tiny cell phones and hand-held devices wouldn't be here..

I guess my point is, we're just starting to "fully explore" algae, the science has shown it "might be an incredible source of oil" based on preliminary expieriments.. It makes perfect sense from a historical and scientific standpoint to persue algae as an oil source that might well get us off all petrolium oil.. Do you think this gassification stuff was perfect on paper before anything was ever tried with it? The answer, of course, is no.. it needed tweaking and work and expieriments and investments to move. Now, if we pretty much prove that algae can't do what we hope it will.. then we should stop "wasting money" on it.. agreed. But, at this point, it's not like the government is giving billions of dollars to people in the algae who don't need it, right? They save that for the oil companies that are making historically record setting profits.

Algae for feedstocks for oil for bio-diesel is pre-infancy at this point. ALL discoveries took some time and money and determination to come to fruition, and the biggest ones took the longest. You're not even willing to give this a chance, it seems... To claim "there are a lot of better energy ideas than algae" is to deny the potential that's being discussed. Even at 1/2 of the touted limits and only a mere 5,000 gallons/acre we'd be off foriegn oil in a few years once we got our algae farms built. To imply that burning fossil fuels to convert biomatter to liquid is better than harvesting plants is to show you have no reasoned concept of what "better" means. It's "better" in ALL cases to put 10 pounds of work into making 50 pounds of stuff (which you can use 10 pounds of for your next batch, leaving a net of 40 pounds of stuff to use elsewhere) than it is to put 100 pounds of work into making 50 pounds of stuff (TDP is a net-loss process I'd guess... you only do that when you really need the product and don't mind expending the energy.. or when you're using it for recycling, for example.. turning trash into useful chemicals while avoiding putting stuff in the ground where it does no good for anyone.. but in THIS case, we're trying to get energy so pissing away more than you can make doens't add up to me). Growing plants for fuel is better than burning fossil fuels to make fuel. Pressing plants to oil and then making it to biodiesel with a chemical reaction uses a LOT less energy than the energy required to vaporize matter.

Anyway, there's no point in continuing the discussion. At the end of the day, anyone that supports "the market" and listens to it for advice as to what to persue is someone that doesn't seem to want to think for themselves, or try to actually solve problems. The market isn't looking to fix anything, its looking to make cash. Algae -might- be able to give us the oil scientists think it has, and if it does, -regardless- of if the "market" drives it, it's a good thing. The market doesn't always drive tech.. and in fact, a LOT of the market is just the whoring on the coat-tails of semi-random discoveries.

octotatt said:

That's the beauty of the market, it will weed out bad ideas eventually.

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Why are Reality TV shows still on air then? hmmmmmm?

Seriously though, you should check this company out. They were featured in the march 2007 issue of Popular Science:

http://www.startech.net/plasma.html

That article about TDP you posted sounds very much like this companies approach. That link doesn't provide all of the details covered in the article, but it is pretty cool. They're building one in Port St. Lucie FL so those of us down in the south will have something to check out.

Their plasma reactor will break anything down except for nuclear waste, and it produces ~30% more energy than it consumes allowing it to run independent of the energy grid, and work like a generator.

octotatt said:

Lots of good points on TDP on technical issues. My point overall is that there are a lot of better energy ideas than algae. Your point on the market as a psychopath is very interesting. That's what laws and regulations are for. The market is the ultimate generating machine. Everything you have today, is provided to you via the market. Government programs are mostly ineffective. The Soviets proved that. A technology that requires that requires massive government subsidies ulitmately collapses. Putting billions of dollars investment into algae to get a couple of dozen quarts of oil certainly won't solve our problems, no matter how "green" that resulting oil is. You always have to factor the "non-green" energy that is expended to create the wealth for the susbidy. Here are some private market, green energy companies with an array of great ideas

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You are falling into a logical fallacy called "the law of the excluded middle" where the only two options that exist are A and B, and nothing in between.

In response to your claim that a technology that requires massive government subsidies ultimately collapses one only needs to look as far as two of the most American things we consume.... Oil and Beef. Both are massively subsidized by the government. Would either of them collapse without those subsidies? perhaps... would that be a bad thing? perhaps not. Just as those industries which are subsidized, others that are more sustainable could be put in their place.

As far as government programs being mostly ineffective, how do you explain the fire department, the police deparment, schools(though there are problems here due to lack of funding), social security, and the interstate system just to name a few.

How is oil subsidized by the government? Last I checked the government has collected more in tax revenue than the companies that have actually bought, converted and transported the gasoline have earned in profit over the last decade.

Everyone railing against the market: do you realize that you are part of it too? The market is driven by the consumer. It sounds like you're just upset your decisions as a single consumer don't mean anything when most people don't think like you and you want to dictate what others should be doing.

And how do you think any type of biofuel will be made in mass quantities? It will take massive investment from the market looking to make a profit to kick fossil-fuels. As oil owned by "non-trouble making countries" dries up biofuel will be more profitable because of the supply-demand pricing mechanism we all contribute to.

I'm beginning to think the worst enemy biofuel has is the army of malcontent trust-funders fighting for it.(not to say thats what we have here, but I live in a college town with a lot of that kind of thing)

tequilaiam said:

How is oil subsidized by the government?

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Well, in so many ways.

http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/hearings/2006/hrg060330a.html

See the testimony by:

Milton R. Copulos
President
National Defense Council Foundation
Alexandria, VA

His conclusion is that gasoline costs $5 extra, over and above the pump price on every gallon sold.

thanks for the link.

I guess military intervention isn't technically a subsidy but perhaps it should be considered one. However, i think you could apply it to many products but oil would be the largest consumer of military protection.

tequilaiam said:

How is oil subsidized by the government? Last I checked......

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Better check again: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/

Of course it could be argued that we're not in Iraq for the oil.. but to save those poor Iraqi people. That, however, wouldn't fit the free market/capitalist model. ocotatt explained it well: "Madness would be putting a whole lot of effort and money into something that ultimately yields nothing".
How is oil subsidized by the government? The Department of Energy says we spend about $20 billion a year for middle east oil. Add the $72 billion a year for the war and.. well..there's your subsidy ( and no..we can't count blood!!).
Mike

Originally Posted by octotatt
That's the beauty of the market, it will weed out bad ideas eventually.

Why are Reality TV shows still on air then? hmmmmmm?

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Because they are popular ideas. Bad ideas, yes. But popular, bad ideas.

Getting back to the thread topic... I must profess that when I read this article a while back, I was very disappointed at the admission that they have only successfully produced a TINY amount of actual oil from algae. It made me realize that this may very well never work, or at least never work effectively.

We have to start from somewhere. If algae works, the oil industry will shift dramatically, fundamentally.

Can't wait.