Rising Fuel Costs

[Lee Hillsgrove]

Lee - I saw your address as "live free or die" USA - that sounds like our state of N.H. We live in Errol up by the Canadian border - that's why we vacation in Newfy in order to escape the tourists.

Yep, I live in central NH. Amen on escaping the tourists. It's not bad here before memorial Day and after Labor Day, but fuggetabout it during the summer!

[Lee Hillsgrove]

Sorry, I saw a Special on TV.

Thanks for the links - I was not aware of this development.

However, a quote from one of the sites:

Economic feasibility with regard to algae sets in only when the energy efficiency - the conversion of sunlight into hydrogen - reaches 7-10 percent. But alga in its natural form achieves at most a meagre 0.1 percent. The new 'turbo-alga' has now come up to 1.6-2.0 percent.

...seems to indicate that we have a ways to go, yet.

Turning algae into biofuel can be done today!

[Bigfoot Mike]

Thanks for the links - I was not aware of this development.

However, a quote from one of the sites:
...seems to indicate that we have a ways to go, yet.

Turning algae into biofuel can be done today!

I agree.

Part of that same article says:

Hydrogen From Algae Green Future

Certain algae can produce hydrogen during the photosynthetic process. (Yahoo.com Photo)
The green energy of the future: A German-Australian research team has succeeded in breeding algae, which produce hydrogen in previously unheard-of quantities.
Amid rising oil prices and dwindling energy reserves, a genetically altered alga is now nourishing visions of an environment-friendly supply of energy.
Researchers from the University of Bielefeld in Germany and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, have genetically changed the single-cell green alga ’Chlamydomonas reinhardtii’ in such a way that it produces an especially large amount of hydrogen.
This gas can then be burned to produce energy. In contrast to the use of fossil-based fuels such as petroleum, coal or natural gas, no carbon dioxide is produced, but instead only water, according to yahoo.com.
It has been known for a long time that certain algae can produce hydrogen during the photosynthetic process, explains Bielefeld biologist Olaf Kruse. But the catch was efficiency, as one liter of alga produces only about 100 ml of hydrogen. ’Then it’s over, because the cells die off.’
But the genetically altered variant boosts this up to half a litre of hydrogen. By Kruse’s estimates, it can, in the long run, produce five times the volume made by the wild form of alga.
[b]Economic feasibility with regard to algae sets in only when the energy efficiency--the conversion of sunlight into hydrogen--reaches 7-10 percent. But alga in its natural form achieves at most a meager 0.1 percent. The new ’turbo-alga’ has now come up to 1.6-2.0 percent.
’We have not reached our goal yet,’ says Kruse, calmly announcing: ’We want to reach it in five years.’
At the end of the development process could be a biological fuel cell in which the alga produces the necessary hydrogen directly at the site of consumption. A motorist would then, instead of a stop at the petrol pump, need only to have an alga power plant on board.
This is naturally a futuristic vision.
Kruse has been working on such a ’turbo-alga’ together with Ben Hankamer of the Institute of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland since the year 2001. From a pool of 20,000 random mutations, the scientists have selected 20 algae, ultimately coming up with a genetically altered mutation called ’Stm6’.
[b]Meanwhile, at the Technical University in Karlsruhe, a prototype of a bio-reactor containing 500-1,000 liters of algae cultures is being developed. The reactor is to be used to prove the economic feasibility of the system in the next five years.
’What is of decisive importance is finding a way of producing energy for which we won’t need to import any resources,’ Kruse says. On the basis of calculations, a reactor shaped like a cube measuring three meters per side and filled with algae could supply a two-person household with their energy needs.
[b]Decentralized reactors with a million liters of alga cultures could in the future supply entire districts of 1,000 households.
’Hydrogen is absolutely the energy of the future,’ Kruse stresses. ’A precondition however is that certain things must be improved. In the next 20 years, we must have built up a carbon dioxide-free alternative source of energy.’

Yes, we should do biofuel now.

[CD Smith]

I agree.

Part of that same article says:

Yes, we should do biofuel now.

We should certainly stop wasting resources on ethanol, which at best can only replace a very small amount of imported oil, and focus on hydrogen which could eventually make us totally free of foriegn oil.

[Joe MacDonald]

this might be of interest to a few people, Ches have you ever run across one?

[Gina D.]

that thing looks like it could run across anything it wants!

[Chester Taje]

this might be of interest to a few people, Ches have you ever run across one?

I have seen them in mines we visited as Mine Rescue Team members, but never had one in operations that i have worked at.We use Scoop Trams for our supply systems and other minor jobs.

Foot note
Units i did see were compressed air and Battery.

[CD Smith]

More about ethanol!

I read in the paper today that both the price of oil and the price of gasoline are up in the options market.

The reason given for the rise in gasoline prices is the increased use of ethanol as an additive.

So we are no longer being gouged by the foriegn oil producers, but by the american farmer.

What a gas!

[Lee Hillsgrove]

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/11174...l-promises.html

7 pages, but WELL worth the read.

[Chester Taje]

That is interesting.