Researcher: Discovery could end energy crisis

reply to post by hinky


This was also in the sorce article.

Bell said he never considered ethanol for his research. “He who burns his food goes hungry,” Bell said. “That’s an old Chinese proverb.” Instead he concentrated on bio-mass and hydrocarbons. “If it grows it’s bio-mass,” Bell said. Bio-mass is any living or recently dead biological material. Hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen and is naturally occurring in crude oil.

And this

He estimated the budget for the research facility to be at $60 million annually and the production facilities at $250 to $300 million a year. He anticipates being in full scale production by October 1, 2009.

If they can make a bacteria that'll turn biomass into fuel, I think they should make a strain that converts politicians and lawyers into fuel. While they're at it, how about a new type of capital punishment? If governments are going to have the death penalty anyway, why not death by biomass conversion? It'd at least get some use out of the criminals, and pay back some of the taxpayer money it took to support them during their stay in the pen.

Could you imagine the adcopy? Soylent Unleaded Premium is people!

reply to post by PsychoHazard


psycho
hahaha
well that is a good point. Anything that grows could be bio mas. So by products from the animal industry could be used for fuel. Not to menchen people. So what conspiracies will this bring should it actually go into production?

reply to post by azodrac


Could also be used as an argument to support the abiotic theory for the origin of oil?

Duncan

Doesent this prove Oil is made from dead plant material? not a unlimited resorce like some people are usualy saying on here?

reply to post by nexusmagazine


hm, i just did some research on the abiotic theory, and it is interesting. I'm not sure if this proves that theory, as this technology is just breaking down organic material into hydrocarbons. Unless a similar proccess happens down below. Im not sure, but if the abiotic theory was true, i wouldnt be surprised if the oil companies would keep that from us to continue sucking the money off of us. Like RedGolem said, who know if there would be a conspiracy to keep this from taking off. It would certainly take U.S. demand from OPEC, which as the researcher stated, not very many people would like. But you would beleive the government would want to be independent of the greedy middle eastern companies. So im not sure, it is always where the profit is.

But here are some links concerning both the traditional formation of oil and the newer theroies on abiotic. Because i was always led to beleive oil was formed from organic material. Who knows, could be a secret there as well.

www.columbia.edu...

"Petroleum, the general name for all carbon byproducts like oil and natural gas, is formed from organic material. This material, coming from land or from dead plankton and other marine organisms, reaches the floors of bodies of water and becomes part of the many layers of sedimentary rock that form there."

www.rense.com...

"...hydrocarbons existed at the time of the solar system's formation, and are known to be abundant on other planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and some of their moons) where no life is presumed to have flourished in the past...the abiotic theory holds that there must therefore be nearly limitless pools of liquid primordial hydrocarbons at great depths on Earth, pools that slowly replenish the reservoirs that conventional oil drillers tap."


[edit on 12-6-2008 by azodrac]

If I were an oil company, I'd try to form a partnership with this person.

Even if you could produce fuel for 25 cents per gallon, you're still going to need the infrastructure to get that fuel to the gas stations etc.

Regardless of the price of gas, there is money to be made.

Think about what oil companies would let this kind of opportunity slide by.

There are already several ways in use to some extent which convert biomass to energy. There's the aforementioned burning of methane, conversion of sugars to ethanol, and then there's the very cool mechanical thermal depolymerization process. IMO, biomass conversion to ethanol or oil will be useful when they breed bacteria which successfully convert cellulose into oil.

As for people worrying about this stuff getting out and eating the world's biomass; It's just bacteria, in conditions specifically tailored to their growth. No nanotech involved. It's not like if the bacteria that turns corn into ethanol got out, it'd eat the world's corn. It's just some normal anaerobic bacterium. Living things have immune systems, and don't generally get literally eaten alive by microbes before they can even die.

Originally posted by mdiinican
There are already several ways in use to some extent which convert biomass to energy. There's the aforementioned burning of methane, conversion of sugars to ethanol, and then there's the very cool mechanical thermal depolymerization process. IMO, biomass conversion to ethanol or oil will be useful when they breed bacteria which successfully convert cellulose into oil.

There are many alternative energy sources using biomass to date, but this process and the thermal depolymerization process you mentioned are probably the most promising. And the thermal depolymerization process actually have plants up and running, which is pretty neat. I personally dont see the other biofuel technologies providing any long term advantages. The infrastructures are not in place and would cost billions to change them while this technology and the thermal depolymerization process use the same infrastructure in place. And ethanol has more of an effect on food products than anything else.
Using this process and the thermal depolymerization process waste products that are otherwise put in landfills are being converted to useful energy. As of now, " there is 457 million tons of daily waste that could be converted into fuels." As of now the thermal depolymerization plants are only using feedstock from turkey as a source of biomass and are currently loosing money in the process, so the future of that technology is unsure. IMO this process using the altered bacteria appears to be more versatile as the process is much more simple and easier to set up than the thermal depolymerization.
Here is a link for the thermal depolymerization technology:en.wikipedia.org...
There seemed to be a lot of excitement in washington when he presented at a conference, but that was a couple of months ago.

Originally posted by hinky
A couple of problems and some lacking facts. We all know nature does this now on the cheap and free, it's called methane. Totally burnable gas, no mutated genes for bacteria involved, just Mom Nature at work and play.

As other posters may have pointed out there isn't much in the way of mutation involved even if mutation was a notable problem...

You can actually use this amazing technology at wastewater treatment plants and some of these plants generate electricity off this gas which is a waste byproduct for wastewater treatment.

Sure and oil extraction have long been associated with natural gas which for the most part and in most locations just get burned off because it's 'inefficient' ( according to who you might ask) to accumulate and store it.

A handful of bacteria in a silo of organic material doesn't work that easy. There will be a multi-million dollar investment for the production facility, then a refinery has to be made to convert the goo from bacteria to a clean burnable fuel. The cost of this cheap source has now become loaded with overhead.

But will it require the investment of tens of billions worth of taxpayer funds like fusion research has? What has Fusion research so far contributed in terms of wattage produced for public consumption?

For a barrel out you need at least a barrel in. It won't just magically appear regardless of the latest technology. The byproducts of this production will be treated as hazardous waste, there will be cost associated with their disposal in a very serious manner which would probably involve incineration as you wouldn't want mutant bacteria released into our environment. It takes money and more energy to operate this facility so the overhead just got a little more expensive.

Maybe so but there is truly no such thing as hazardous waste if your willing and able to employ the right kind of biological material to either consume it or at least consume what you consider so hazardous. When hazardous materials are heaped into toxis dumps it's not that there existed no ideas on how to treat it but rather lax regulations and the fact that it costs that extra bit of money that they would rather put in their pockets than invest in preserving ground water sources....

What type of organic material are we going to use, a food product like ethanol uses which drives up the cost of food? What about trees or just plain grass, hope the bacteria likes fiber, not many sugars there to consume, but then it's mutated genetically altered so lets make really enjoy fiber.

I think it's made clear that it will at first be quite happy dining on organic waste which is certainly something most cities produce in relatively large amounts? If people in some countries can be convinced to sort there trash( recyclables etc) i am sure they can be asked to keep the organic stuff separately as well. Most farms also generate large volumes of organic waste so if these planets can be miniaturized they may also serve as power generators and save hundreds of millions in terms of electricity infrastructure that is more potent than solar technologies.

Not to rain on the parade, but this new source of energy isn't cheap when actual costs are included.

According to the article that seems to be the case but few of these technologies seem cheap at first. It's not that i don't have better and more practical ideas but we all know how the PTB feel about vacuum energy extraction , LENR and anything that truly seeks to break up the power monopoly they currently hold.

Stellar

reply to post by azodrac


Some of the links may no longer be working but you can check out the following and see just how much information we do have concerning the abiotic origin of oil/coal

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Stellar

reply to post by StellarX


interesting to compare, thanks for the link
azodrac

[edit on 23-6-2008 by azodrac]

Personally, I like the idea of using algae as the source of biomass (I've been reading up on this one most of the day).

The process uses seawater (so it is not a burden upon water tables), it absorbs copious amounts of Co2 (which will help the environment), and the leftover material can be converted into fertilizer and animal feed. Current estimates of production range from 10,000 to 20,000 gallons per acre per year (as opposed to traditional biofuel sources which only rank in the 100's of gallons per acre per year).

There are many startups exploring the technology and some may be producing aircraft fuel as early as 2009.

Video and further info/links available here:
Vertical Algae Biofuel

[edit on 23-6-2008 by SystemiK]