Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fuel - viable source?

I've been watching what in theory has the potential to have huge ramifications on our fuel demands -- specifically, diesel fuel -- for a few years now. Growing algae?

Yup, goofy as it sounded a few years ago, I recognized the potential, and benefits over current attempts at producing "grown fuels"( beans, corn, etc.). Most obvious is that you aren't competeing with your food source for fuel (how dense that is). Algae grows fast, requires a fraction of the physical area to produce viable quantities, and yields clean, high energy fuel.

It's 'bout two genetic advances, and half-dozen technilogical advances from having impact, but it's getting closer.

If you have an interest, here's a place to start.

[color:#33CC00]really green energy[/color]

I listened to a presentation on current projects, and techniques yesterday. It's a ways off, but in my view, will be a viable energy late in my lifetime, and certainly in my kid's time here on earth.

Current cost of pond scum as fuel would be 'bout $20.00/gal, with a goal being $2.00/gal (unsubsidized). When that day is in sight, have your investment capital ready to go.

> big grin<

The food vs. fuel argument is a myth, but there is no denying that corn, beans, etc. have a very low bio-density compared to algae. A corn plant takes up a lot of room and the feedstock yield per acre is a fraction of algae's.

Biofuels from algae isn't without its problems. The conversion rate to a usable fuel is slow and expensive in spite of the yield per acre and suitable plant locations are limited. Technology might solve the former, but not the latter.

The key to bio-fuels is a single manufacturing/processing plant that can handle multiple feedstocks. Corn and soy are used because they're plentiful, relatively inexpensive, and have a fast conversion rate. Eventually that same plant will be able to use switch grass, wood waste, algae, and even carbon dioxide generated during processing. At the same time, processing plants can be designed to use feedstocks that are available locally. That will keep plant sizes down and help avoid the centralization that has so plagued fossil fuels.

i enjoy following this kinda stuff too, but i dunno.

when the long-term viability of the soil is taken into account, i have my doubts, but then i've become use to being in the minority on some things, and in the majority on others.

until fossil fuel goes sky-high, alternatives won't be very plentiful, i would imagine.

A slightly different take on this is making fuel from genetically modified kelp...

Kelp grows at a fantastic rate and doesn't need costly tanks ect but could be "farmed" in shallow coastal waters..

Or remember all that blue-green algae that Chinese had to dispose of just prior to the last Olymics? They had troops out cleaning up some of the Olympic watersport venues and they removed thousands of tons of the stuff and that was just from one naturally occuring "bloom"

So to the potenial is there...

Should be a much better approach than using fuel to grow corn and then converting it to alcohol. We could go a long way toward helping our energy issues if we all simply went diesel. By-products might also be a new source of livestock feed.

Looks like california wants batteries instead of algae


http://www.heartland.org/environmen..._Repeal_Greenhouse_Gas_Restrictions.html

If people ever looked into what it takes to make a battery.
( and then ship it all over the world )
Every couple years,
They would NEVER consider a hybred or electric car.

The future is in Bio fuel

( I make my own bio gas daily... now if I could botttle it, I'd be flyin free! )

Switching to diesel 'overnight' would pose lots of problems. Ballpark, a barrel of crude oil produces 20-gal. of gasoline and 10-gal. of fuel oil. Refineries can tweak the percentage a little, but a fast changeover would require a drastic increase in crude oil output.

You have the feed issue kinda backwards. Bio-diesel utilizes most of the protein and fat components that are beneficial to livestock. In contrast, corn ethanol only utilizes the sugars. The by-product, various forms of distillers' grains, is high in fiber, protein, and fat, and a great feed - so great it often has to be cut. Corn ethanol plants crank out tons and tons of animal feed to the extent it's considered a co-product, not a by-product. The feed is so rich, depending on the local market, many plants centrifuge off the corn oil and sell it to bio-diesel manufacturers.

Your statement assumes that yield potential is infinite, farmable acres are infinite, and population is finite. Not something I'd want to defend.



Yes to the first statement, with advances in technology to overcome that not yet perfected (or even known).

The issue of production in different climates was the thrust of the presentation (via TX Ag dept) that I listened to yesterday. Plant genetics specific to different regions is what they are tackling right now - similar to genetic differences for corn, cotton, beans, etc.

So yes, as of todays date suitable locations are limited, but certainly not forever.

The use of algae by-products as feed or fertilizer is also part of the research, and as with current bio-fuel sources, may be as valuable as the fuel produced.

Nobody is suggesting converting 100% to diesel, but reducing the demand for diesel, allows less competetion for carbon-based fuel. That's a win, win for the consumer.

My statement is only directed at the here and now - food vs. fuel is a myth.

There are lot's of 'ifs' in your post - that's not a slam, just an accurate portrayal of algae's role in bio-fuels.

Then there's the problem of having to burn twice as much alcohol to make the same amount of power so the gain is minimal.

Hydrogen is and always will be the cleanest options, but manufacture, processing, and containment in an accident are the biggest concerns.

More like 20% with E10 or E85 and current engines, but both those blends come from the government dartboard with no basis in reality. Most modern engines will provide very similar mileage using E20-E40.

However, engines designed to use alcohol (variable compression) get the same mileage. No matter what fuel replaces foreign oil, engine manufacturers are going to have to keep up. Gasoline engines can't burn hydrogen either.

every time the gaspump price ups a penny, i think someone has driven another nail into the individual automobile, and encouraged mass-transit.

it ain't fun to think about stuff like this unless one is an investor in makers of mass-transit.

Gloomy Gus,

Problems create opportunity, which I figure is the point of Mako's OP. We can all argue the merits of this fuel or that, but the key is that we keep moving the ball and accept that we will make mistakes. What has to change is standing around like morons for the last 45-years while the oil sheiks rape us.

nah, i'm not so gloomy, as long as i can run a poulan, swing a maul, and pound sweetgum with a 10lb. calf-s head, using an iron wedge.

ol Jimmah was right, the energy crisis is the moral equivalent of war.

meanwhile, as you attest, we screw around, fund mindless sh*t, and life goes on, with only gasoline at the pumps costing a "little" more.

i'm passionate about the subject, as i suspect you are also. but, all this this "bionic" stuff can only be a gap or bridge filler, righ?

i mean, without nuclear, either fission or fusion, the winters are going to be cold and the summers are going to be hot?? yes, we should keep trying. that's about all we've ever done, and about all that's left to do.

One would think that, with the 1.5 Billion pounds of human poop produced every day, that conversion into a viable energy source wouldn't be all that tough. Plus, I'd like to see honey wagons that say "Chevron" on the side.

I'm just sayin'

Gasoline averages about 114,000 btu/gallon while ethanol is about 76,100 btu/gallon. There's 33% less energy available in a gallon of ethanol compared to a gallon of gasoline. Given the same level of tuning for each fuel, a vehicle will get 20 to 30 percent better mileage burning gasoline than burning ethanol. It's just physics.

The internal combustion engine can burn pure hydrogen. Not saying it's practical, but you can read about it here. The pure-hydrogen-fueled vehicle was converted from gasoline fuel to operate on 100% hydrogen.

that stuff is pretty much un-centralized, except in the mega-cities, more or less.

it does represent the base-case of humans converting biomass into biomass.

Absolutely - bio-fuels are a gap-filler just like gasoline has been for the last 100-years. With the gap widening again, the question is how fast can a replacement fill the new gap and for how long.

Gasoline has left us with an extremely valuable infrastructure. Junking that infrastructure and then rebuilding a replacement isn't feasible on a nation-wide scale. The logical fuels are those that flow and pump like gasoline/diesel and can be burned in gasoline/diesel-type engines.

What we're looking at isn't replacing gasoline, it's augmenting it. How many cornfields or algae swamps it would take to replace all of our fuel needs is a goofy question. If half of our gasoline consumption can be offset with bio-fuels the vast majority of gasoline-related world problems are also offset. If the solution is shared by ethanol and bio-diesel from multiple feedstocks I'm all for it.

Mako lives in Texas and Texas residents would be nuts to start building bio-fuel plants - they have oil - drill baby. The deep south - maybe algae/biomass based ethanol and bio-diesel. The corn belt - corn, wood waste, and switchgrass ethanol. Throw in a combination of feedstocks and fossil fuels for the western states.

As long as we don't lose momentum, like we have in the past, we really aren't that far away from fuel independence right now.