Company Claims Potential Magnification In Bio Fuel Production 260
duanes1967 writes "A company called Joule Biotech claims to have a breakthrough in biofuel production. Their process can create 20,000 gallons of fuel per acre per year at a cost of about $50 per barrel. 'Algae-based biofuels come closest to Joule's technology, with potential yields of 2,000 to 6,000 gallons per acre; yet even so, the new process would represent an order of magnitude improvement. What's more, for the best current algae fuels technologies to be competitive with fossil fuels, crude oil would have to cost over $800 a barrel says Philip Pienkos, a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO. Joule claims that its process will be competitive with crude oil at $50 a barrel. In recent weeks, oil has sold for $60 to $70 a barrel.'"
Dubious Maximus (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Scan to drive their stock up. (Score:3, Informative)
Scan to drive their stock up. Nothing more.
Let's assume for a moment that instead of "Scan" you meant "Scam".
From the company's about page: Founded in 2007 by Flagship Ventures, Joule is privately held and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Last I checked, "privately held" == "no stock price."
Re:Bullshit (Score:1, Informative)
If you use 20,000 gallons like the article said and suppose that it is ethanol (~76,000 BTU/gallon) you get around ~0.445 MM kwh.
Then the efficiency drops to around 6%, not 21%.
probably more like 6% if its ethanol (Score:1, Informative)
20000gal x 76000 btu/gal ethanol * .000293 kwh/btu => 0.445 MM kWh .445/7.4=> 0.0601 =>~~6% efficient
It isn't Algae... (Score:4, Informative)
It does say that the closest thing out there to what they do are ones that use algae.
When the first cars were built, the closest thing to them was the carriage, but automobiles didn't use horses to power them.
As to the people questioning as to whether they are using genetically engineered organisms, the article clearly states that they are.
Yes, your fuel may soon come from a genetically engineered non-algal microbe.
Sure, fine and all that, but I still want man portable fusion cells... Or maybe pocket antimatter. >^_^
Re:Scan to drive their stock up. (Score:3, Informative)
Not completely true. Privately held companies do stock issues to raise money. They generally set a price for their stock and then see who will buy it at that price. So a big press release right before an offering might let them set a higher price and sell less stock and make the same money or set a higher price, sell the same amount of stock and make more money.
Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
5kwh per m^2 per day? At what latitude? If that is on the high side, they are back on the theoretical impossible part of the field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Us_pv_annual_may2004.jpg [wikipedia.org]
In southwest texas, 5 KWH per sq M is wildly pessimistic by around a factor of two. In western Washington state, it is wildly optimistic by a roughly equal factor of two.
Taking a wild guess based on my vast real world experience, a marketing weasel might just possibly use the "best obtainable" number available, and maybe round up all figures, giving around "ten" KWH per day and rounding up to about 16 or so MM KWH per year.
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Informative)
We simply need to tax fuel enough to establish a price floor that will encourage alternative investments. The Europeans are already there so now the US just needs to start increasing the tax rate
Why?
Why do you automatically assume that if the Europeans do something it must be right for every place on earth?
If this breakthrough is for real, and it was developed in Cambridge Massachusetts USA, with the tax structure we have today, and nothing like it has appeared out or Europe with all its horrendous taxes, then where is the basis for your euro-centric view?
How will pouring more tax dollars down social rat-holes help solve an energy crisis?
Do I necessarily believe this announcements? No, not yet. Does that mean I should run to Europe and adopt every tax-grab they dream up? Of course not.
Re:Uhh, Heavily Bought Into By Oil Industry (Score:2, Informative)
Three Mile Island demonstrated that the safety systems in place were effective. That doesn't rule out learning from the incident, but it was not a catastrophe, it was a successful containment.
Let's do the math... (Score:5, Informative)
- They can actually generate 20,000 gallons per acre per year
- 1 gallon of biofuel will get you the same mileage as 1 gallon of gasoline
US gasoline usage = 378,000,000 gallons/day = 137,970,000,000 gallons/year
Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html [doe.gov]
Area needed: 137,970,000,000 gallons/year / 20,000 gallons/acre/year = 6,898,500 acres = 10,779 sq.mi.
Comparative area: Massachusetts is 10,555 sq.mi.
So, we'd need an area slightly larger than MA to generate the needed biofuel. This may seem like alot, but...
Farmland in US: 922,095,840 acres = 1,440,774 sq. mi.
Source: http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/US.htm [usda.gov]
Percent farmland to convert to biofuel: 10,555 sq. mi. / 1,440,774 sq. mi. = 0.73%
This isn't much, if you ask me.
Now, for the financial incentive to do so:
Value of 20,000 gallons of biofuel at $50/barrel: 20,000 gallons = 476 barrels * $50/barrel = $23,000
Corn yield of one acre: 162 bushels/acres (Iowa)
Source: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/pdf/a1-14.pdf [iastate.edu]
Value of 162 bushels of corn: 162 bushels * $4.77/bushel (Estimated 2008 Calendar Year Average) = $772.74
Source: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/pdf/a2-11.pdf [iastate.edu]
So, converting one acre of corn farmland to one acre of biofuel farmland will increase the revenue from $773 to $23,000, a nearly 30-fold increase.
So, this looks like it might be worth it depending on the cost of conversion and cost versus revenue. It'll certainly be interesting to watch.
Re:Uhh, Heavily Bought Into By Oil Industry (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uhh, Heavily Bought Into By Oil Industry (Score:3, Informative)
No. When you burn them you are releasing carbon into the atmosphere, but when you grow the algae they remove an equal amount of carbon from the atmosphere. No net gain of CO2, that's the definition of carbon neutral. Oil is not carbon neutral because burning it releases carbon into the atmosphere which was previously sequestered in the ground.
Re:Let's do the math... (Score:4, Informative)
gallons, acres, miles, bushels.. ye gods man, don't you know the rest of the world is metric.