Pond Scum and The Future

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
So tax cuts wouldnt help make something more commercially viable?? So let me get this straight, making something cost less does not help its commercial viablity?? Im not quite following you there.

Way to be semantical buddy. We are talking about pond scum not something. To be a large company and say 'OK, let's ditch hundreds of millions of dollars a year into an nonresearched energy based source, which has so far no insentive other than being 'green', and hope that people buy our product despite the fact we have no idea if it will be cheap, expensive, or limited to the bourgoise', is taking a huge leap of faith into an unknown area. This is despite the fact what stock holders and investors have to say.

Where are the reports and projects that define the minimum and maximum expected cost of major operations?

And simply, spending billions of government dollars does not garuntee a thing. Nor do tax breaks. Nothing is garunteed. The government is not a magic godfairry.

I never asked or said tax cuts would make it a profit maker just it could help thus making people not have to increase its production rate as high to be profitable.

The insentive is to make it profitable. Private companies cannot run deficts like the federal governments.

What does weather conditions have to do this technology? These would have to be grown in inclosed structures like greenhouses to harvest the Hydrogen. They would be put out in useless desert land or some other sunny place since the only thing the really require besides water is lots of sunlight. The desert has that in spades and water can be pumped anywhere you want it. Its not like algae is hard to grow either weather is really a non issue.

Weather plays a huge role in energy production. Why do people need energy in the first place? Here is one: to heat their homes. Why are oil and other energy resource prices so high sometimes and why do they spike higher at other times? Here is one: hurricanes, torandoes, ice storms, sand storms, etc.

And because 'water can be pumped everywhere' does not mean water can be pumped everywhere at a minimal cost. A desert? What desert? What happens if you need an area the size of Rhode Island to run an operation jsut to produce enough fuel to provide energy to 1/10 of the nation? What in the hell are the taxes going to be on that place? How much will it cost?

When demand is increased you grow more algae just as any grown product, when soy demand increases you grow more soy when theres a higher demand for apples people grow more apples. People have been doing that with crops since the begining of recorded history.

Yes, but you grow pond scum in a pond, and as you say 'in a closed structure'. Farmers grow crops in top soil, not crops in greenhouses. How fast does this scum reproduce?

The idea just sounds silly, and everyone knows why these ideas aren't being built upon: You haven't convinced anybody. Make a convincing argument, and maybe someone will fund your research just to estimate the cost of a major operation. Even then, one report probably will not suffice.

Many of these ideas just sound like magic, pure and simple.

[edit on 21-3-2006 by Frosty]

Frosty I see you edited out your question as to why they havent been building new nuclear plants in the US for year. I guess you realized what a lame question that was and cut it out. Gee maybe it had something to do with a few little events like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl along with the public blacklash that followed.

And simply, spending billions of government dollars does not garuntee a thing. Nor do tax breaks. Nothing is garunteed. The government is not a magic godfairry.

I never said that thats all you. But Tax Cuts and Providing Tax Incentives are proven ways to increase the profits of any company. Its not a hard concept to grasp.

Weather plays a huge role in energy production, Why do people need energy in the first place? Here is one: to heat their homes. Why are oil and other energy resource prices so high sometimes and why do they spike higher at other times

Weather has a huge role in energy demand not production. Thats why prices go up during the winter because demand is higher then production. There is no vast upgrade in production during the winter. Oil companies use the increase demand to rake in the money not increase production to put the product out cheaper to the people.

Big Oil is a cabal that manipulates oil prices to make themselves rich not increase production to give people cheaper oil during the winter.

And because 'water can be pumped everywhere' does not mean water can be pumped everywhere at a minimal cost. A desert? What desert?

This stuff can even be grown out at sea really most anywhere. I suggested deserts because in the US there is hundreds of thousands of square miles of the stuff on the cheap and are great sources for sunlight most of the year.

What happens if you need an area the size of Rhode Island to run an operation jsut to produce enough fuel to provide energy to 1/10 of the nation? What in the hell are the taxes going to be on that place? How much will it cost?

Your just making up stats. Beachcoma clearly showed "To displace gasoline use in the US would take hydrogen farms covering about 25,000 square kilometres." To put that in perspective, that's less than a tenth of what the US devotes to growing soya.

Thats with the current strains. People havent even known algae could do this for that long and have spent even less time trying to increase hydrogen production, and have already increased the production rate vastly and claim to be nowhere how far it can go.

Yes, but you grow pond scum in a pond, and as you say 'in a closed structure'. Farmers grow crops in top soil, not crops in greenhouses.

Pond scum or Algae grows in any standing water its like a weed trying to not grow its the hard part. If you have a fishtank just stop tending it for a few days and see what happens.

How fast does this scum reproduce?

Well lets see its the fastest growing photosynthesizing organisms.

oakhavenpc.org...

The idea just sounds silly, and everyone knows why these ideas aren't being built upon: You haven't convinced anybody. Make a convincing argument, and maybe someone will fund your research just to estimate the cost of a major operation. Even then, one report probably will not suffice.

Um but your wrong because people are pouring money into this research trying to increase the Hydrogen production of he algae. They havent even been doing it that long and already have impressive results. As has been stated in this thread already the production hasnt been increased enough to be profitable yet.

Oil is getting more expensive all the time too so it just makes their work easier.

Many of these ideas just sound like magic, pure and simple.

You know you ask aot of questions about this tech and research that are answered in this thread or in the links given. Perhaps you should educate yourself on the subject before you shoot it down as "Magic"

DENY IGNORANCE

Let's focus on the topic and not one another

Originally posted by Frosty
Yes, but you grow pond scum in a pond, and as you say 'in a closed structure'. Farmers grow crops in top soil, not crops in greenhouses. How fast does this scum reproduce?

The idea just sounds silly, and everyone knows why these ideas aren't being built upon: You haven't convinced anybody. Make a convincing argument, and maybe someone will fund your research just to estimate the cost of a major operation. Even then, one report probably will not suffice.

Many of these ideas just sound like magic, pure and simple.

I posted 9 reports from various sources on the subject. Some of them were about the two companies involved in algae-based biodiesel and ethanol production. The rest were regarding the US Government funded university research on algae-derived hydrogen manufacture. All the links are there on the first page of this thread.

From those reports you will find that the 'pond scum' for these purposes are not grown in standing ponds, but in clear tubes. The reports also detail how rapidly the algae grow. In fact, it grows so rapidly that it can be harvested several times daily.

There's a great deal of interest in these ideas. Even the bigshot in genetics, Dr. Craig Venter is interested in it, not to mention the US Department of Energy. All these information are in the links I provided on page 1.

There's no magic here. It's science. Pure and not so simple.

[edit - typo, i when it should be o]

[edit on 22-3-2006 by Beachcoma]

I edited the topic of nuclear plants because it was off topic. Nuclear plants are not built because they are expensive, even with government assistance.

Fair enough but some Countries like France for example seem to be doing just fine with this "expensive" Nuclear energy production.

Theres clearly more to the issue then cost if you look into the cost. Nuclear 1.68 cents per kilowatt-hour, coal-fired plants 1.90 cents, oil 5.39 cents, gas 5.87 cents.

www.nei.org...

Anybody happen to come across anything recent from Melis? His company www domain (melisenergy.com) is a spamsite since '04 and I am unable to locate any alternates.

Thread revival! I've waited a long time for news on the subject. Finally, something new with regards to the OP:


Algae could generate hydrogen for fuel cells


They used the same strain of pond scum as Melis, but unlike their predecessor, the algae didn't eventually die off. The rate of hydrogen production compared to the previous method is slightly lower, but again it's still better because the cells didn't die off.

It's a small step, but it's a step nonetheless. Stay tuned.

reply to post by Beachcoma


I believe algae will play a big role in the future especially if algae can produce hydrogen. Nice post Beach, starred.

Here's an article from CNN about pond scum.

Algae: 'The ultimate in renewable energy'