Biofuel

[RandomBastard]

Just found this vid (through another forum):

Vertical growing algae, biofuel of the future? - Eco-technology to provide energy eff...

If they're not bullshitting then surely this is the way to replace our oil needs?

 

[nath]

Hmm, sounds too good to be true, and most probably is - I'll be interested to see what happens with this.

 

[Raven]

Yet another complete waste of time and effort like our rapeseed oil experiments i imagine.

Still, it gives them an excuse to ramp up the tax on conventional oil (as if they ever need one)

 

[old.Tohtori]

If it works, yei. If it doesn't, oh well.

As much as can be said about that.

Though, biofuel, always makes me think of: "this ferrari only eats 3 babies/mile."

 

[Will]

Biofuels cannot totally replace oil, from a simple energy equation point of view.

Millions of years of sunshine make the oil. A years supply of biofuel only uses a year of sunshine. It might help to extend the life of the fuel in the ground, but it will never totally replace it.

 

[rynnor]

Biofuels cannot totally replace oil, from a simple energy equation point of view.

Millions of years of sunshine make the oil. A years supply of biofuel only uses a year of sunshine. It might help to extend the life of the fuel in the ground, but it will never totally replace it.

Its not really that simple tho - much of the material that could have become oil and gas would have been consumed by other organisms/decomposed etc.

It takes a fairly uncommon sequence of events to trap organic matter in a way that produces gas/oil - I dont know exactly how rare but I'd be surprised if it was above 1000th of a years bio energy - so in other words you could create a thousand years or ten thousand years equivalent oil in a year by a more effecient method rather than your proposed 1:1 ratio.

 

[Will]

I realise it isn't quite that simple. But I'm pretty sure we burn through more oil in a year than the solar energy we can provide biofuels with year on year and still feed our population.

I wonder if anyone has crunched the numbers on this one. If any knows, I'd be very interested in any studies on it. I suppose I could work it out myself, number of barrels of oil vs. solar energy for a year. But not tonight.

 

[nath]

I thought that was the point of this vertical stacking thing, much more efficient use of the sunlight that is available.

 

[Chilly]

algae also grows in water. something we have rather a lot of and dont use most of - handily leaving land to grow rice.

 

[Tom]

Petrol and diesel consumption is a rather small part of oil usage in total.

 

[rynnor]

Global Solar Energy Balance Amount in Terawatts

Solar Energy Input 178,000

Reflected to Space Immediately 53,000

Absorbed and Then Reflected as Heat 82,000

Used to Evaporate Water (Weather) 40,000

Captured by Plant Photosynthesis
(Net Primary Productivity) 100

Total Energy Used by Human Society 102

Total Energy Used by US Society 2.5

Total Human Food Energy 0.6

Source - Taking Stock: What Do All These Large Numbers Mean?