Re: [Biofuel] Algae Oil
robert and Benita wrote: Jeromie Reeves wrote: I think we are going in circles about the same issues. This is a puzzling statement. I've only responded to you once. How can we be going in circles? Poor choice of phrase. I mean I think we agree but I am expressing my self poorly. I agree we need to make things as efficient as possible. I do not think we can get 'there' in one step, or even two. I also agree things need to be done on a more local scale. So you're wanting to look into an iffy process that no one outside of a lab has managed to work, as if that's going to be an efficient use of time and resources? I'm really not following you. (Replacing one fuel with another) I did not say it would be efficient. Many endeavors have been very inefficient but lead to great discoveries, often by pure accident. It is my time and resources to use. I am spending very little time on the algae (to date it, other then my fish tank, it is purely reading/thinking) It is obvious (even to me!) that this is a very long road, if not a total dead end (it has not been proven to be a dead end quite yet, just not the solution some people spout it to be.) I am not about to build a bio-reactor farm or go turn my yard into a pond (well, not all of it, I promised my eldest son he can have a fish pond). I got onto this 'algae kick' whilst researching preventative methods for the pond and how to build the least care intensive pond (I want to be able to leave for a few weeks and not worry about some one else taking care of it) Yes and no, depending on we. I am looking at this because it looks promising but has had so little delivery that it got me curious. Maybe because it doesn't work? Would it not be better to replace fossil fuels with something that could be more carbon neutral? That seems like a noble goal on the surface, but beneath it lurks a business as usual mentality that seeks to maintain our current energy usage paradigm. Perhaps this is not your intention. However, advocating the replacement of fossil fuels has traditionally implied a switch without respect to current patterns of use. (Massive, centralized operations) Of what kind? Devoting acreage to growing algae seems pretty massive and centralized to me. What I pictured was smaller single family type growth operations. While I do not yet have the numbers it looks like it could very easily be done by a small group. It would take a fairly large area altogether. Hence, my contention that it is not a small operation. In the same way that feeding everyone is not a small operation when you add up every garden in the USA. Each one is small but altogether its big. Lets assume that in my idea here, everyone is responsible for growing how ever much algae is required to fuel them selves. If you need fuel for 1 car or 5, its on your head to make it happen. Your underlying assumption here is that you can simply replace one kind of fuel for another. THAT isn't going to work. We have too many cars. Our cars are too big, heavy and inefficient. Our cities (at least here in North America) are generally built around the automobile. How is growing algae for fuel going to work? Oh I think the entire idea behind cars need to change too. That simply was not the primary target of the thought process here (for me). I absolutely agree how we build cars needs to change as well as what we do with them. I have a mini-van and a sedan, when I need a pickup I barrow one or rent one. I know of some people of in Canada that built a 1960's style oil cracking tower. They feed it used oil and pull off fuel and heating oils. It seams to me that algae would be a better stock, and help fill any shortages in supply. The two ideas together seam promising. I burn ethanol in my truck with a few modifications. I can burn woodgas, too. I can burn methane from a digester. I can even electrolyze hydrogen from water and burn THAT if I want to. I can also pick up a lightweight glider from the wrecking yard and build an EV. All of those solutions can be done on a small scale and are likely more practical than growing algae in vats or vertical tubes in a greenhouse. Homebrew ethanol isn't legal where I live, but that would be the easiest solution to making fuel for my little truck. The problem really isn't one of generating fuel. The real problem is the truck itself. How EVER did my ancestors live without one? I have plans to convert my `81 sedan over to something, I just have not decided what. Propane was looking promising but it has spiked in price. I do not feel comfortable with the current tanks for hydrogen. There were some very promising metal hydride tanks but the components were made illegal (with cause, they are toxic if some one dumps
Re: [Biofuel] Six Reasons Why Obama Appointing Monsanto's Buddy, Former Iowa Governor Vilsack, for USDA Head is a Terrible Idea
http://uk.reuters.com/article/usPoliticsNews/idUKTRE50J7ND20090120 Senate confirms Vilsack as agriculture secretary Tue Jan 20, 2009 9:39pm GMT By Charles Abbott WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate confirmed former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as U.S. agriculture secretary on Tuesday, a job he plans to use to promote renewable energy including biofuels and put healthier food in America's school meals. Vilsack was among five of President Obama's cabinet nominees to be approved on a unanimous vote a couple of hours after Obama took office. With 100,000 employees, the Agriculture Department has a portfolio that ranges from antihunger programs like food stamps to running the national forests, paying crop subsidies, promoting farm exports, aiding rural economic development and directing agricultural research. Nearly one-fifth of Americans live in rural America. As secretary, Vilsack, 57, will face two tasks immediately -- working with Congress to renew USDA's child nutrition programs, which cost more than $15 billion a year, and deciding whether to tighten USDA's eligibility rules for farm subsidies. During his confirmation hearing last week, Vilsack said the child nutrition programs, which include school lunch and breakfast, could be a tool for ending childhood hunger by 2015, a goal set by Obama. He said he wanted to bring more fruits and vegetables into schools and more locally grown food. The related Women, Infants and Children feeding program, costing $6 billion a year, also needs reauthorization this year. Obama has backed a $250,000-a-year hard cap on crop subsidies so we help family farmers and closing loopholes that allow megafarms to get around payment limits. A lawyer, Vilsack has no direct experience in agriculture but during two terms as Iowa governor, ending in 2006, was active on agricultural issues. The last farmer to serve as agriculture secretary was Jack Block, of Illinois, in the early 1980s, in the Reagan era. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Algae Oil
Aarghh!! Jeromie's got the dreaded Green Slime Disease! LOL! Well Jeromie, you're not the first, not the last either I'm sure. It's very strange, IMHO, how people fall in love with algae, of all things to fall in love with, but they do it nonetheless, and then after that they can't seem to see straight anymore, love is blind. Anything about oil from algae or biodiesel from algae that isn't altogether positive and doesn't help shore up their assumptions and presumptions, such as asking Where can I buy some? when the perennial answer is that there isn't any, either gets ignored or attacked, like you just badmouthed the guy's religion or something. This is from the list archives two years ago (I have a whole bunch of them if anyone's interested) (which I'm not): Could we replace all our oil with bio-fuels? Well... maybe... (Jason Katie) 1000 gallons methanol per acre with hemp if using pyrolytic distillation. (Kirk) And/or 100,000 gallons of oil per acre when growing algae. (Todd Swearingen) Um, where exactly are these acres of algae each producing 100,000 gallons of oil? Anywhere here on Planet Earth in August 2006? (Keith) Southern Kaliforn-I-eh. By December's end, 2007. Plant is or has already been contracted upon and should be completed by then. (Todd) So in short Todd, as with the last 25 years, there is no biodiesel from algae right now on Planet Earth, but hey! it's just around the corner (December next year this time). But it was not possible to persuade Todd that there was any difference between here and now on the one hand and perhaps in 18 months' time on the other. Instead I got berated and told I don't have any vision and I hate biofuels and so on. And it didn't happen anyway. Also from the list archives two years ago, Bobby Emory, the list-owner at the Oil_from_algae group at Yahoo, told me that after two years they were on the verge of a breakthrough: a professor at the group had just got a centrifuge so he could get the oil out of the algae, and he'd soon be running his truck on 1/2 SVO and 1/2 biodiesel, both from his algae. Also just around the corner, and it also didn't happen, and two years later they still don't have a method. I'm not sure they even have a sample. (Oil_from_algae group, founded: Aug 3, 2004, members: 2146.) Also from the list archives, Wikipedia said two years ago: The highest yield feedstock for biodiesel is algae, which can produce 250 times the amount of oil per acre as soybeans... Studies using a species of algae with up to 50% oil content have concluded that only 0.3% of the land area of the US could be utilized to produce enough biodiesel to replace all transportation fuel the country currently utilizes. Have a look at what Wikipedia says now - not quite so sure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel And so on and on, no end of fantasy/hype/scam to do with oil from algae. But in the real world oil from algae still doesn't exist, and doesn't look like doing so any time soon. Jeromie says: Assuming the info about bio-reactors pans out, there is plenty of space to use for algae and other food stuffs that lend to hydroponics. The information about bioreactors that isn't based on fantasy, hype or scam is that it doesn't pan out. John Benemann calls them bizarre contraptions. The use of closed photobioreactors ($100+/m2) for such applications is totally absurd. And: There are now scores of venture-financed companies, university research groups, government labs, garage start-ups, GFT licensees, web sites, and on and on claiming that they have, can, may and/or will produce algae biodiesel, at low cost, high productivity, soon, etc. None are based on data, experience, reality or even a correct reading of the literature. The Biopact report agrees: The claims that algae yield 'enormous' amounts of useable biomass, have never been demonstrated or substantiated. Algae production in photobioreactors has never left the laboratory or pilot phase and no energy balance and greenhouse gas balance analyses exist for biofuels obtained from such systems. Krassen Dimitrov says bioreactors are probably the most absurd approach that can be undertaken, and he explains why. These three articles (which include links to further information) are reffed at the Journey to Forever website section on Oil from algae: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html#alg Jeromie, I've now referred you to these articles twice (actually three times), but you ignore them, and don't reply. Not positive enough for you eh? While I do not yet have the numbers it looks like it could very easily be done by a small group. That's what the folks at the Oil_from_algae group think too, there are a couple of thousand of them there, working away at it for four years and they've achieved nothing. Other cases here in the list archives going back seven years, they also achieved nothing. You won't listen to that
[Biofuel] Gaza backlash
Hi all, Sorry, can't post the live links as HTML is automatically scrubbed so I'm afraid you'll either have to cut and paste or reformat to HTML and add live link brackets but the effort is worth it. This is powerful stuff, particularly the very informative piece headed Beautiful Lady. Regards, Bob. Sir Gerald Kaufmann http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8eurl=http://whatreallyhappened.co m/ George Galloway http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIpvrOJQ0J0feature=related CNN Who broke the ceasefire http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFMZ7Y-s_ceurl=http://whatreallyhappened.co m/ Beautiful Lady http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rCBJjCiLGceurl=http://whatreallyhappened.co m/node?page=3 No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.9/1902 - Release Date: 19/01/2009 9:37 a.m. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Gaza backlash
Hi Bob, The only one whoo seems not to know anything about the stuff is Obama! But than he stoppt today the Trials for the Quantanamo prisoners.Maybe change need fare more time as we are ready to give! Regards Fritz -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of bmolloy Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 2:54 PM To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Subject: [Biofuel] Gaza backlash Hi all, Sorry, can't post the live links as HTML is automatically scrubbed so I'm afraid you'll either have to cut and paste or reformat to HTML and add live link brackets but the effort is worth it. This is powerful stuff, particularly the very informative piece headed Beautiful Lady. Regards, Bob. Sir Gerald Kaufmann http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8eurl=http://whatreallyhappened.co m/ George Galloway http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIpvrOJQ0J0feature=related CNN Who broke the ceasefire http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFMZ7Y-s_ceurl=http://whatreallyhappened.co m/ Beautiful Lady http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rCBJjCiLGceurl=http://whatreallyhappened.co m/node?page=3 No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.9/1902 - Release Date: 19/01/2009 9:37 a.m. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Gaza backlash
Hi Fritz, You've put your finger on the problem. None of this would be possible without American support. The US gives more aid to Israel than all its other aid efforts combined, a total of five billion a year plus weapons. In fact, Palestine and Lebanon are testing grounds for new American weapons such as the bunker bombs which Israel used to such deadly effect in Southern Lebanon two years ago. Without this aid Israel could not exist - its economy is a propped-up farce - nor could it continue these endless wars of ethnic cleansing in pursuit of a greater Israel. We in the West also pay dearly for this in other ways. Before Israel existed we had no hijackings, no bombs on aircraft, no onerous security measures, no hours spent in airports being searched. To support this racist State the US lost the twin towers, Spain had its worst spate of civilian bombing since the civil war and Britain's subway system was brought to a halt. This is called terrorism. The real name is asymmetric warfare or the little guy fighting the big guy. If terrorism is the warfare of the poor, then war is the terrorism of the rich. The words terror and terrorism are inventions of the propagandists to stop us thinking and automatically feel we should be on the side of the good guys or the non-terrorists. Regards, Bob. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Friedrich Friesinger Sent: Thursday, 22 January 2009 9:14 a.m. To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Gaza backlash Hi Bob, The only one whoo seems not to know anything about the stuff is Obama! But than he stoppt today the Trials for the Quantanamo prisoners.Maybe change need fare more time as we are ready to give! Regards Fritz -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of bmolloy Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 2:54 PM To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Subject: [Biofuel] Gaza backlash Hi all, Sorry, can't post the live links as HTML is automatically scrubbed so I'm afraid you'll either have to cut and paste or reformat to HTML and add live link brackets but the effort is worth it. This is powerful stuff, particularly the very informative piece headed Beautiful Lady. Regards, Bob. Sir Gerald Kaufmann http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8eurl=http://whatreallyhappened.co m/ George Galloway http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIpvrOJQ0J0feature=related CNN Who broke the ceasefire http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFMZ7Y-s_ceurl=http://whatreallyhappened.co m/ Beautiful Lady http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rCBJjCiLGceurl=http://whatreallyhappened.co m/node?page=3 No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.9/1902 - Release Date: 19/01/2009 9:37 a.m. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.10/1906 - Release Date: 21/01/2009 7:07 a.m. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
