They're now trying to use algae to make more petroleum(oil)!?

Question

how could and would that affect the effects of peak oil and wether modern technological civilization could go on because of it.

Answer 1

I think what you are referring to is biofuel. Instead of having to use big tracts of farmland to grow crops for biofuels, algae can be used.

Modern technological civilization will get along much better without petroleum.

We only need the political will to move faster toward alternative energy.  Wind is already cheap.  Solar power plants in the southwest can produce electricity at prices comparable with coal or gas fired plants, right now.

This plan would convert the U.S electric grid to 65% solar by 2050, or 35% of our total energy, including transportation.  and nearly 100%

by 2100.



from Scientific America  

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

This could be done spending $400 billion in public money over about 30 years.  Annually, thats $13.3 billion.

We're giving 5 or 6 times that much to the oil and gas industry in subsidies and tax credits.

It cost up to $100 billion a year for military protection of oil shipping.  And there are hundreds of billions $ more in other hidden costs.

And there are all the geo-political problems as well.

If we have a clean energy grid, it can be used to power transportation as well.  Electric Cars

We already have lithium titanate batteries and 440 volt charging systems that can charge the battery in 10 minutes.  All you need is charging stations.

And Tesla electric luxury sport roadster can go up to 220 miles per charge.  Not bad for a car that also can go from 0 to 60 mph in under 4 seconds, and do 130 mph.

The technology keeps improving.

Nuclear is more expensive in the long run than solar.

"Estimates of the cost to construct nuclear power plants are as high as $4,000 per kilowatt, as compared to about $1,400 per kilowatt for wind projects."

"Some people object to government subsidies for renewable energy projects. What they might not know is that new nuclear plants are being underwritten by tax dollars in amounts infinitely larger than any support being offered to clean, safe energy sources."

" The nuclear industry has long enjoyed limited liability for nuclear accidents under the Price-Anderson Act, which ensures that taxpayers, not industry, will pay for damages in the event of a serious accident."

"Part of our electric rates go to payments to the federal Nuclear Waste Fund, which is intended to fund the construction of the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada and pay for transportation of waste to the proposed disposal site. To date, Wisconsin customers have paid about $600 million into this fund."  

  That's just one state.

"Nuclear plant owners are responsible for costs to dismantle retired units, dispose of waste, and decontaminate the site. Each unit has its own decommissioning trust fund, paid for by customers. Wisconsin ratepayers have spent $1.5 billion for the eventual decommissioning of the Point Beach, Kewaunee, and Genoa plants."      

They don't give us energy independence

"We import 65 percent of our oil, but 90 percent of our uranium. At a time when state and federal leadership has set goals for "energy independence," reliance on nuclear power would mean depending on technology that requires fuel imported from overseas. Moreover, according to MIT scientists, there is less global supply of enriched uranium than commonly projected and the price has increased more than tenfold over the last five years."

Is this safe?  Sounds like a terrorist target waiting to happen.

"A report from Argonne National Lab concluded that aircraft crashes could subject nuclear plants to numerous multiple failures that could lead to "total meltdown" even without direct damage to the containment structure."

To see what solar power plants are already doing in California and read about plants about to be built, go to Green Wombat.

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/

from Ausra, a solar thermal company's website:

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

"Solar is one the most land-efficient sources of clean power we have, using a fraction of the area needed by hydro or wind projects of comparable output.  All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."

The articles at Green Wombat include other companies doing this.  Just scroll down.

Answer 2

I think that is a great idea, almost everyone knows this but there is also hydrogen powered cars now and both of those will affect our society in a great way by giving us more fuel. Also it helps the enviroment.

Answer 3

It would be great if it worked; that's more or less how we got oil in the first place.

The major questions about algae-to-oil are:

1.  Whether it will work.

2.  Whether it can be made affordable.

3.  Whether it can take carbon from the atmosphere and be made carbon-neutral, or if it requires concentrated CO2 from some fossil source and must always be part of a fossil-fuel system.

So far there are hints but nothing demonstrated.  At least one company has tried to make biodiesel from wild-type algae growing in open ponds; that's the kind of thing we need, and I wish them luck demonstrating it on an industrial scale.

Answer 4

yea geothermal is cool - very good for the environment. prolly about the most environmentally friendly form of energy really.

however, i am dissapointed to see that people are still continually bringing up hydrogen power. hydrogen power is NOT clean energy. it takes just as much if not more fossil fuels to produce the hydrogen fuel than it does to drive a regular car. as of yet, there has not been a method developed that can efficiently break hydrogen bonds. therefore an i put of energy (in the form of fossil fuels) is required just to create the fuel. i hope this hydrogen fuel cell hype dies with the bush administration (i have read that bush has investments with a hydrogen fuel cell company-may want to look into it though).

algae are a very interesting and very new form of energy. it seems to have great potential as a renewable resource.

Answer 5

What I find really interesting is recent research indicating petroleum is a product of geologic processes and continues to be produced deep in the ground.

I doubt that algae could produce nearly enough burnable fuel to keep even 1% of our current energy economy going.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Bush's progress on geothermal and Hydrogen energy. We now have fleets of cargo haulers running around the US powered by hydrogen generated by geothermal energy that won't run out for many millions of years.  Not that the newsies ever mention that fact.