$30 A Barrel Oil?

An American biotech company named Joule Unlimited say that they have developed technology that will be able to produce diesel fuel for $30 a barrel without using valuable farmland or crops. I will reserve judgement,but if they can do what they say this could be a real game changer.

In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” – a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that produces liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (U.S.) a barrel of crude oil. It will deliver, the company says, “fossil fuels on demand.”

Here's a link to the above article that I got that quote from:
www.theglobeandmail.com...
Here's a link to the company's website:
www.jouleunlimited.com...
Of course there are known problems using hydrocarbons as an energy source, but a domestically produced, renewable source could go a long way towards perhaps bringing about a more peaceful world.

To the CEO of Joule,

Within a few days you will be discredited. Look at what happened to Tesla he made a breakthrough to make free energy but failed. better brace yourself before the Feds discredit you or possibly kill you via the CIA

To the same CEO:

DO IT! Your my hero of the month!

Its about time we stopped sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas! Bravo!

Star and flagged!

barrel prices and what you pay at the pump are totally independent of each other.

when george bush launched his war in his quest to steal iraqi oil fields and corrupt and prop up treasonous iraqi politicians who would grant global oil companies lucrative concessions, oil peaked at over $140 a barrel.

i'll speak about canada. since the privatization of petro canada, oil and gasoline have been run by american and international oil companies who have thoroughly corrupted public officials.

when oil reached $140 a barrel gas prices at the pump soared to 95 cents a litre. canadians were outraged, which in canada means, talking to yourself in your car when you see the price listed on the board at the gas station. little else.

fast foward to 2011, oil is at $70 a barrel and gasoline prices, for basic unleaded has reached $1.16/litre. for americans who complain about the price of a gallon, do the math, 3.78 litres in a u.s. gallon. 1.16 x 3.78 = $4.38 a gallon.

i''m not a mathematician, but if you are selling gasoline at 95 cents a litre and blaming the price on world oil prices, shouldn't the oil companies, now that a barrel of oil is half the price be selling gasoline at 47 cents a litre and still be making the same in profits. some thing is very off.

the truth of the matter is that world oil prices only matter if it can be used to justify increases and are conviently ignored when they hurt the bottom dollar. savings are never passed on to consumers and the politicians who are supposed to protect you from foreign exploitation have committed treason and by putting their interests above the country and population the average hard working person who put their trust in them suffer. that is the greatest crime.

Joule says its “solar converter” technology makes the manufacture of liquid fossil fuels 50 times as efficient as conventional biofuel production – and eliminates as much as 90 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions. “Requiring only sunlight and waste C0[-2],” it says, “[this] technology can produce virtually unlimited quantities of fossil fuels with zero dependence on raw materials, agricultural land, crops or fresh water. It ends the hazards of oil exploration and oil production. It takes us to the unthinkable: liquid hydrocarbons on demand.”

Great find. S&F

I hope that this does indeed prove to lower fuel costs. I have only one problem with this. It does not change the fact that we are still burning hydrocarbons. While it can be a game changer, I would like to see how the big oil take this news. We need to study more on how to get away from the hydrocarbon energy source instead of studying how to produce more hydrocarbons.

Great find OP, S&F for bringing this to our attention.

Although I'm not sure how much coverage or support this will get. Diesel is a huge market and they love the money they make off it now.

30$ a barrel though, could you imagine?

~Keeper

reply to post by starwarsisreal


I was thinking that too, I hope not. John Podesta is on their Board of Directors, I don't know what to make of that..

Yes!It is about time we developed new laws defining treason for what it has become.... exploitation of the people....
through manipulation of all the factors the uber rich collect staggering profits, while we are kept in the dark, and fed sh&*t!

As soon as the new politicians get into office they are attacked by the older politicians and told how they will run the government. This includes what lobbies to go after and who will be paying the most money.
Prez Bush was the one who deregulated the oil industry and the gas prices at the pumps have been climbing ever since.
I see this company being bought by big oil before they can do any harm.

My .02

They can make oil from trash and sewage for $60 a barrel using the Fischer-Tropsch process.
Using trash and sewage to make oil we would eliminate drugs in drinking water and leaching of landfills (worth the extra $30)
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process

This process not only can be used to make diesel but can make any fuel used today and others like butanol that can be used in fuel cells.

The only problem with the Fischer-Tropsch process it was invented and patented in 1920s and the patents have expired so no companies can make any money from licencing the process.

That is why you have this other companies trying to reinvent the wheel so they can patent it and make money from the patents.

Thirty dollar a barrel oil does not just have ramifications on gas price. Think of all the products made from oil plastic for instance. Question is would the consumer have the cost passed to them or would the government just tax the hell out of the manufacturers to get that money?

The only problem I see with the process is that you need alot of land. 1 acre to produce 10K barrels a year right now and 25K barrels an acre full production.

That's alot of land needed to produce fuel. And we use billions of barrels a year.
Plenty of cheap land in Mexico I guess. If you can keep it the drug dealers out of your hair.

We have to end our heavy dependence upon foreign oil, and
all alternatives should be explored and developed.

I think this is a good idea that has been presented here
and S & F to the OP.

Even "specially modified" cyanobacteria can't change the laws of thermodynamics.

They've been trying this with algae for a long time.

You have to feed the bugs, and use lots and lots of land---as it is a "solar power to chemicals" process.

And you have to prevent more adapted species from taking over --- (i.e. those whose evolutionary programs are designed to reproduce their genome rapidly instead of expending massive metabolic energy producing hydrocarbons which none of their offspring get to eat).

It's easy when you have stupid cows---you shoot the wolves. You can't do that with invading microorganisms.

If you have closed reactors, then the capital costs will kill you.

Algae and bacteria are what coal and petroleum used to be. But it took hundreds to thousands of years of sunshine to produce what we dig up and burn in one year.

I'd love for it to work, but there is no need for any conspiracy theory to make this "not going to take off any time soon".

Just go by economics and the path of least resistance: the trajectory for the planet in the next 50 years will be increased use of natural gas, and less use of conventional petroleum.

Originally posted by liejunkie01
We need to study more on how to get away from the hydrocarbon energy source instead of studying how to produce more hydrocarbons.

This is false.

Liquid hydrocarbons are the most useful form of storable low-entropy energy. This is from basic physics and chemistry.

They're a perfect solution, as long as you don't get them from digging up the stuff that deserves to stay under the ground.

Any grown biofuel will get its carbon from the atmosphere instead of rocks.

So instead of all of us paying 5 dollars a gallon for gas that will run out in a hundred years, we can pay 5 dollars a gallon indefinitely..

yay

/goes an bangs head against the wall.

Originally posted by mbkennel

Originally posted by liejunkie01
We need to study more on how to get away from the hydrocarbon energy source instead of studying how to produce more hydrocarbons.

This is false.

Liquid hydrocarbons are the most useful form of storable low-entropy energy. This is from basic physics and chemistry.

They're a perfect solution, as long as you don't get them from digging up the stuff that deserves to stay under the ground.

Any grown biofuel will get its carbon from the atmosphere instead of rocks.

edit on 24-1-2011 by mbkennel because: (no reason given)

Good information. I have only one problem with this. Do we not have to burn these liquid hydrocarbons? By burning these hydrocarbons are we not polluting the environment a little at a time? I know that this is a more efficient way to produce the liquid hydrocarbon but the point is we are still burning things for power.

I was mainly stating that we need to get away from this primitive state of producing energy. While it would be nice to have lower gasoine prices and cleaner burning fuels, we are still stuck in the "burn it" era. I am no environmentalist or anything, I was stating that we need to break free from the terrible rigged oil state that we are in. While it will only lead to somebody else ruling the world, I would love to see the complete transfomation of the energy sector and vehicle sector from the hydrocarbon industry.
From the sound of your post you must work in the biofuel industry..