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- fpcyber, on 10/10/2007, -0/+15Me Oh My! What next, Hybrid planes?
- MrNexus, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15Keep this stuff coming. Screw the oil companies.
- crikeydude, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11Ha! see? Kiwis do have some great ideas!
- dcbebop, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11if (blog.engine.name == "WordPress") then site_is_down("GUARANTEED");
- re0turin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6no, that would have a larger footprint more like cars will run on the same stuff
/looks for pond scum - glitch47, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5informative post from the site:
Daniel Lunsford Says:
Great concept, but in practice I don’t think we’ll be seeing this. The amount of biomass that would be required to produce enough fuel for a single trans-continental flight would likely be more than all the floating algae in nearly 100 acres of pondwater. If even one or two of these planes are in existence we’ll have the problem of running out of pond scum!
In addition, let’s remember that the pond “scum” and algae often serve an incredibly vital role in the initial treatment of wastewater and nutrient runoff. While some use of biomass is indeed valuable, I believe that there will be many unintended consequences of removing large quantities of the duckweeds, algae, etc from these ponds. These plants are primarily responsible for the uptake of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (not to mention many types of industrial waste) that is discharged. The amount of time that it would take for a lake to recover from losing 75-90% of its plant matter could result in the organic compound concentration building up and overwhelming the remaining biomass (essentially killing the lake). Lastly, remember that the biomass accumulation assists in keeping the pondwater temperature in check. Removal of the protective layer will likely throw off the entire balance.
Again, great in theory, but more than likely only applicable to small-scale endeavors such as powering farm equipment or single-home power production. (I.E. not flying a jumbo-jet from Florida to California and back) - drmangrum, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4But is it possible to grow and refine the algae in the quantities needed by the airline industry?
- Piedramente, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Huh? Why hasn't this been covered more?
- TenebrousX, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Wordpress errors DO NOT reduce carbon emissions!
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3SAVE THE ALGAE
juuusting kidding. - sportz103, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Sounds good as long as they don't start making it out of bananas and apples, cause nobody sells those to dirty new zealanders (surely, some people must watch Flight of the Conchords)
- thcobbs, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I said better PROFIT. If they can make more MONEY from an alternate energy, they'll be all OVER IT. That's their nature.
- thcobbs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I know at least one "oil" company that is working on alternative energy sources. They are even building an ethanol plant as we speak.
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2There bloody well will be a save the algae movement if it takes off. We will have to find 'humane' ways of burning algae in our aircraft.
- Mooinakan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2It's still highly experimental. My dads company has been researching it for quite some time now. Looks promising, however.
- init100, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2"If it's burning biomass, the exhaust will probably contain Carbon (which would make the "zero Carbon-footprint" speculation inaccurate)."
The zero carbon footprint refers to the net value, not the gross value. Yes, it emits carbon dioxide, but if the fuel is made of biomass, and no fossil fuels are used in the production of the fuel, the net addition of carbon to the environment is zero. - ForkySpoony, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Hybrid cars are a benefit because they increase the efficiency of gasoline. They don't need to plug into the wall, and toyota priuses can't
- antechinus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Cunning people those Kiwis, no other nationality knows more about the many uses of sheep. I am guessing that they first tried to make biodiesel from sheep parts. When they didn't succeed making biodiesel from sheep they moved on to greener pastures.
- speedyrev, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2But what about that yellow stuff in my pool... uh, never mind.
- sixoh1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2The other reason is that there is no free lunch. Biodiesl doesnt 'eliminate' the carbon footprint, it just shifts it, you still need carbon/organic molecules to feed the algae, and their output is still carbon/organic molecules. There are no diesel fuels (bio or otherwise) which dont involve CO2 reactions - these fuels depend on the molecular bonding energy of the material relative to the stable energy of a CO2 bond.
Burning hydrogen eliminates the carbon footprint at the point of combustion (the plane) but requires a carbon footprint at the hydrogen generation station with today's technologies (unless you electrolyze water with electric power from a Fission nuclear plant). - RyeBrye, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yes, with growth lamps and heaters powered by... oh *****... what would you power the growing engine with?
- Pilot85, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1there's a prototype electric aircraft in development.
http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2007/07/26/electric_airpla.html
short range/endurance, light a/c so probly can't haul much, but there you go. - Ngai, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Well doesn't algae produce oxygen and where most of our breathable air comes from?... of course using this as jet fuel could work.. but as Glitch47 stated, you need a lot of it. That would be the only downside... burning our air.
- Muyoso, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2We would need highways that are 2 1/2 miles long for the planes to get to speed.
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I have no problem with capitalism. Remove their subsidies. Make it an even market.
The enemy isn't as much the industry as the state. The industry benefits from it but it is the government that gives them money. - KloroFormd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1If this works... good job.
I won't be surprised if mosquito repellent companies start investing in this technology either. - init100, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1@thcobbs
You have a point, but please consider the resistance to change. It is much cheaper to continue doing what you have done for the last 50 or 100 years than ditch it and start doing something else. If your business is petroleum today, it might be much cheaper to try to bury the alternatives so that you can continue to sell your present stuff than change to produce and sell alternative fuels. - Terr01, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1You mean, like Starscream?
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Starscream would keep trying to blow up the air traffic control tower so he could become the leader of the airport.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Buried for use of phrase "carbon footprint"..
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1That's a problem compared to GW.
- Terr01, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1How technofreudian.
- compgeek, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1seems like a very unique idea. a lot of these alternative fuels are cheaper cleaner and you get more mileage out of them than conventional fuels. a lot of the reason why conventional fuels still rule is that oil companies have lobbies that manage to kill a lot of the funding for R&D of alternative fuels. once alternative fuel lobbies have the same kind of money oil will go the way of the dinosaur lol
- DDRSkata, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Wow, so rich people will actually do something to help the environment instead of raping it.
Yeah, yeah, sweeping generalization, but really. - SecularG, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Ummm. Can't get rid of a carbon footprint when your burning carbon based fuel (biofuel - the algae, ethanol, etc).
- jswhitten, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1The algae takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere before it's harvested and turned into fuel. When you burn a biofuel, you're just putting back the carbon that was in the air in the first place, so the net contribution to greenhouse gases in the air is close to zero.
- AltEfFour, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Wind turbine? Solar? Tidal... etc
- 911ducktail, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1@thecobbs
if you're implying BP bear in mind they've just been given the go ahead to dump more sludge and waste into lake michigan. green they are not
"BP recently won approval from Indiana regulators to exempt the company from state environmental laws as it prepares for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow it to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. Under BP's new water permit, the company, which already is one of the largest polluters of the Great Lakes, can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more suspended solids, or tiny particles of pollutants that come from sludge."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/north/chi-shoreline_31jul31,1,2810327.story - Cyberen, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I like to fuel, fuel, fuel, opples and bononos.
- sixoh1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It is absolutely not a closed cycle. The algae take advantage of molecular stability to operate (something that 'ignores' entropy from our perspective as macroscopic organisms), but they do so at the cost of efficiency, some amount of the possible energy available is consumed by entropy rather than going into the output of the cell's processing cycle.
Every time a carbon atom goes through the supposedly 'closed' cycle it takes the exact same energy to break the CO2 bond and convert it to something else (like methane CH4). The problem is that every reaction must pay an entropy 'tax' - so for each cycle of a closed loop there would less energy available to put into the individual reactions CO2->CH4->CO2, eventually like all perpetual motion machines the system stabilizes in the 'least energy state' - which actually means the state where entropy has distributed the total energy available to itself - the compound CO2 is one of the primary parts of that least energy state, so we're back to having a greenhouse gas.
To further expand on this, you do not get the same molecules back from burning the output of the algae - both because of the way combustion occurs (such as soot) but also because most of the chemical reactions are multi-stage events - combustion of a fuel in free air usuall generates NOx (nitric oxide compunds) since our atmosphere is mostly diatomic nitrogen N2, algae do not eat NOx, they utilize NH4 (amonia), NOx doesnt automatically turn into NH4, it takes other processes for that to happen, those other processes are not 100% efficient either.
End result, a cycle that is highly 'leaky' with more energy escaping the loop than enters through sunlight - and contrary to the idea of a free lunch - much of that leaking enery exits the loop as CO2 and other carbon compounds left unused after each journey of a unit of energy from input to algae to engine and back. - Cubsguru, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I'm assuming it would be produced via agriculture rather than harvested, so that'd mean there would be more around to produce more oxygen.
- sixoh1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1....or the non-conspiracy theory answer (Occam's) is that the oil companies can make money refining crude oil, while the cost per gallon of refined fuel products (diesel in this example) is below the cost per gallon required when converting direct biologicals (living organics) into refined fuel.
Many people hate oil companies, "they" (oil companies) are 'evil' and "they" cause pollution - but "they" respond to market dynamics pretty quickly - if you put your money where your mouth is and paid the higher cost per gallon I doubt the oil companies would skip a beat lining up to sell you the new fuel. This is the reason that ecologists prefer a carbon-source tax - it levels the playing field between alternate fuels and petro-chemical based fuels.
If you want proof take a look at the ethanol incentives in the U.S. - they serve to artificially lower the per-gallon cost of corn-derived ethanol to something closer to the petro-chemical per-gallon cost - many, many oil companies are participating and being 'evil'^H^H^H^H err, making money. - sixoh1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Growing season?
ixnay on the esertDay - algae live in water - generally scarce in desert regions. - arpad, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1And while the various subsidies the oil industry has managed to lobby into existence are being dismantled let's look around for other candidates.
Let's see, there's all the various alternative energy subsidies including the biggest, most onerous of them: ethanol. Cut the ethanol subsidy and the cost of food'll go down. And since the ethanol subsidy is really farm-state pork, while we're cutting that let's cut all agricultural subsidies. - sixoh1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Reallty - I thought all the gas bags had jobs in Washington DC...
- bvz2000, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I can't be absolutely sure here because I am not an expert on this but... doesn't your description actually describe a closed loop system - ergo a "zero" carbon footprint? You say you need carbon/organic molecules to feed the algae. But then you get those molecules "back" when you burn it. Those molecules will then be re-used to create the next batch of algae. Of course, there is the issue of releasing the carbon high in the atmosphere vs. on the ground where the algae can use it... but on a global scale (and for the moment ignoring such things as fossil fuels used to harvest, process, and transport the new fuel) aren't we talking about a completely closed loop system?
Please excuse me if I misunderstood your comment. - GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Where does it get the energy from. Electrical is not a silver bullet. It's about energy, not the mode of transfer.
- freezerburn666, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1i saw a special on discovery channel where they are actually harvesting algae in giant bags to be used as cleaner source of fuel. its pretty interesting.
- thcobbs, on 10/10/2007, -4/+4You people really don't understand that "oil" companies are really in the energy business and when they get a better profit from alternative energy, they'll get behind it.
And where will you precious feeling of superiority be then? - sofaking2007, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0the 'NET ZERO'/ 'start from zero' you describe, assumes 'zero'... we are at +6 000 000 [to continue with numerical representation] in the amount of 'carbon we have processed' to imbalance the equation, to its inevitable 'holy sh*t' quotient.
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