A new kind of Bio-Diesel, just add water.

when you think about the fact that petroleum is a FOSSIL, fuel and you think about the fact that those fossils started out as living organisms...

I am so in love with the idea of bio-diesel. It is the perfect bridge between petroleum use and renewable energy.

I hope the tech they are working on works on a commercial scale
 
unfortunately, the new diesels cannot use biodiesel without damaging the engine and the thousands of dollars of emissions carp mandated to meet the newest diesel emission requirements. anything newer than 2006 has the dreaded diesel particulate filter with active regeneration that occurs with fuel injector injecting fuel during the exahust stroke, urea injection, multiple catalysts, etc....etc
 
In the short term this is so amusing. The world uses 800 million gallons of diesel a day, and if all goes well in two years their 10 acre plant will make 150,000 gallons a year.
 
In the short term this is so amusing. The world uses 800 million gallons of diesel a day, and if all goes well in two years their 10 acre plant will make 150,000 gallons a year.

well, yes... there is no way this one plant is going to meet the fuel needs of the world. But neither is a solar panel on a home or a wind turbine in a park...

I love my gasoline powered car more than words can describe, but that doesn't change the fact that petroleum is finite and it is our responsibility to find alternative fuels BEFORE it runs out, even if projected stores will still last another 100 years (just throwing a number out there, based on nothing).
 
Well let's see here.....
Just for the sake of speculation, my uncle's farm is about 500 acres. A really big dairy and beef farm in Wisconsin.
500 x 150,000 = 75,000,000 gallons. And that's the current potential of one really big fuel farm using this new technology in it's infancy. At the average price of $4.17 per gallon of diesel in my neighborhood that's $312,750,000 retail value. Let's say mark up between retail and wholesale is 1.5 %, then he would profit $208,500,000 per year on the wholesale market not deducting operating costs.
That's a whole lot of incentive for switching to algae diesel, eh?
I can't help but think that as this new found bio technology evolves it will become more productive and each fuel farm will produce more and more fuel per given acreage.
At 800 million gallons a day consumed that's 292 billion gallons a year.
It would take approx. 3893 similar sized fuel farms to produce that volume of fuel in it's current infancy.
Is there enough room on this earth to accommodate 3893 fuel farms?
 
I can't help but think that as this new found bio technology evolves it will become more productive and each fuel farm will produce more and more fuel per given acreage.

well exactly. If someone fifty years ago had set out to invent, on the spot, a powerful computer that could fit in the palm of one's hand, they would have failed. I don't even have a smartphone, and I am sure the phone I have has more computing power than all of NASA did back during Apollo11. OK, maybe not quite exactly that, but you get the point.
 
I agree, it is a drop in the bucket comparatively. however, that drop in the bucket could mean huge change in how we live in the next 100 years. as far as 3000+ fuel farms. there are still large areas of this planet that are un-inhabited mostly deserts were there is no flora or fauna that would be displaced. imagine if a us company set up a large fuel farm in the middle east and started selling diesel against the worlds largest producer of fuel.
 
imagine if a us company set up a large fuel farm in the middle east and started selling diesel against the worlds largest producer of fuel.

I think we would see the algae's water supply tainted with bleach quite quickly.
 
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